Ghosts of Christmases Past
by Jessica237
Summary: Maybe it's time to lay some of those ghosts to rest. Three Christmases Kensi spends alone, plus one where she doesn't have the choice...and one where she does. KD. Complete.
1. empty promises

**Title:** Ghosts of Christmases Past**  
>By:<strong> Jessica**  
>CharactersPairing: **Kensi-centric, Kensi/Deeks eventually**  
>Rating:<strong> T  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Maybe it's time to lay some of those ghosts to rest. Three Christmases Kensi spends alone, plus one where she has no choice in the matter…and one where she does. Eventual KD.

* * *

><p><strong>1/**

She makes her escape without even the slightest of sounds. With expert dexterity, Kensi pushes the screen from her bedroom window knowing just how to replace it later, and then her slender frame slips through the open window with no difficulty at all. She stumbles a bit as she hits the ground below, takes a bit of a graze to the arm from a rather unfortunately placed bush, but other than that, she's out in less than two minutes flat.

And not two minutes too soon.

It's been building for days (though really, it's been much longer than that, if she admits it), the desperate need to simply _get_ _out_. What had once been her favorite time of the year has become nothing but suffocating, leaving her feeling the opposite of everything that surrounds her. There's too much cheer in the air, too much Christmas spirit, too many smiles and too much laughter and too many songs telling her to be merry and jolly.

She doesn't give a damn _what_ the music tells her to do; she's not having a holly jolly Christmas this year (or perhaps ever again) and it's most certainly no longer the best time of the year.

The loneliest time of year is a far more accurate description.

Because Kensi Marie Blye is sixteen, far from everything she's ever known to be home, and above all else, undeniably and inescapably alone.

Logically, it's an absurd feeling given the magnitude of the family she's found herself a part of – her aunt and uncle (who she'd only met once or twice before finding herself pretty much dropped on their doorstep earlier this year), couple of cousins, and a rather frightening amount of very extended family. As Christmas has drawn closer, it seems that enough of that extended family has crowded into her aunt's small house so that it feels almost like…well, Kensi's not entirely sure what it feels like, _but it's not home_.

No. Home at Christmas will always be quiet and simple, Kensi and her dad, _Miracle on 34th Street._ Home was the small tree that she and her dad always decorated together, not the towering, over-decorated behemoth in her aunt's den. Home was simple - nothing out of the ordinary for Christmas dinner, maybe a single batch of cookies; not her aunt's elaborate dinner that takes days to prepare, the mountains and mountains of cookies and other sweets constantly coming out of the oven, the never-fading scent of cinnamon in the air.

It's too much for her. Too much sudden change to a holiday she'd always had a very easygoing view of; too much of a shock to her system, too fast. It's just enough to crack the façade she'd put up within a month of her father's death, the façade she'd built up in order to prove that she _wasn't_ some lost and broken orphan now, that she was_ just_ _fine_, that she _certainly _never needed the counseling her aunt had tried to force her into during her first month with her new family.

Through the horrendously long month of December, that crack in her armor had only grown more and more with each passing day. She'd tried to patch it up herself, but in the end, it clearly hadn't been enough. Today, December 24th, that armor had finally shattered into a million tiny pieces of all the emotions she's fought back, leaving her just as broken and as vulnerable as she'd felt just after she'd found out.

And Kensi berates herself for not expecting it because really, it's the culmination of _everything_ that's happened in the greater part of the past year. Losing her dad, never getting any answers, being plucked out of what had truly been the only home she'd ever known and being placed with family who were really more strangers than anything else, people she has _nothing_ in common with, nothing at all. It's certainly made the holiday season stressful, but she's managed to deal with it until now by locking herself in her room and throwing on a pair of headphones, blocking out all of the holiday cheer with decidedly angry music until she feels ready to emerge once more, which sometimes isn't until the next afternoon.

But today, perhaps the one day when she's needed that distraction the most, it simply wasn't an option. Emotionally strained, physically exhausted, and stuck in the den to help entertain extended family before Christmas Eve dinner was to be served, it had only taken a single question to break her; one question from the youngest of her three cousins, three year old Caleb with the messy blonde hair who had taken an immediate liking to her all those months ago.

He'd climbed somewhat clumsily into her lap, his tiny hands clutching the well-loved light blue blanket he's never without, and Kensi had welcomed the little boy, because he's the one member of this somewhat crazy family situation she's found herself in that she's found she can put up with. He'd been babbling about…at this point, Kensi doesn't even remember what because it was what came next that had triggered her badly sealed-up emotions.

He'd squirmed in her lap, locking his innocent eyes with her perpetually unhappy ones as he asked such a simple, childlike question, partially muffled by the blanket held so close to his mouth. "What do you want Santa to bring you, Kiki?"

Kensi doesn't know if it was the untouched innocence in Caleb's eyes and in his words (she'd once possessed an innocence like that) or more likely, the realization that the one thing she wants the very most for Christmas is the one thing that no one can bring her.

She just wants her dad back.

She wants to go home.

She _can't_ be here any longer.

And that's why she's sneaking out her bedroom window forty-five minutes before Christmas dinner's to be served, with nothing but a small, simple leather bag draped over her shoulder that contains nothing but her most prized, most bittersweet possession.

The overpowering need to escape had taken over her mind; she hadn't grabbed anything else. And even if she had, it doesn't really matter because Kensi doesn't really have anywhere else to go. Doesn't have anybody to turn to tonight, this night of required merriment that's utterly suffocating her. She'd needed air, needed space, needed simply to be anywhere but _there_.

And so she runs. Her feet hit the ground with an angry cadence, one whose force only seems to increase the farther she runs. First pavement, then gravel, then grass, and it's not until she's covered in sweat and gasping for air that her feet fall upon the sand, the ocean mere steps away. She's literally run to the edge tonight…and tonight, of all nights, she finds herself wishing she wouldn't stop.

The beach is almost empty – a rare sight any time of the year, but one that Kensi's incredibly grateful for. It's still early; the winter sun is just beginning to set over the ocean, painting the cold sky in a wash of pinks and oranges – warm colors, Kensi thinks. No warmth in them for her, though, none at all, not when she's been trapped in nothing but a cold, overcast grey for the past several months of her life. Bitterly she scowls, thinking back on relatives and family friends (well, friends of her "new" family, anyway) telling her to put a smile on her face, looking at her in disapproval when she failed to do just that. In the beginning, she'd at least tried. She'd played the part of the happy, well-adjusted teenager for the duration of their painfully long two-week summer vacation. She'd forced laughter and smiles for little Caleb's third birthday just a few weeks after that. And she'd feigned excitement the night before her first day at her new high school, pretending to go through all the motions of picking out the perfect outfit when she really hadn't planned on wearing anything different than what she normally wore. And now, the days leading up to Christmas…normally, she's good at pretending, but right now, Kensi feels like she's just one smile away from breaking.

She watches them, the perfect, unbroken family celebrating the season of joy; there's no way she could possibly be more removed from that. There's always going to be that wall there, because at the end of the day, the truth remains the same: _they're_ a family, and Kensi's not a part of it.

Doesn't want to be part of it either.

Sometimes, she's not strong enough to keep that from showing – after all, she's gotten the typical sullen teenager speech more than a couple of times.

She only _wishes_ her sullenness was typical.

And really, the implication that she should have left her grief, her heartache, her memories at the door months ago gets her heart pounding angrily once more. They don't _know_ what it feels like; they don't _know_ her. They'll _never_ know her. They're _not_ her family.

With trembling hands, Kensi lifts the flap of her bag and slowly pulls out the box she'd hidden within. It's a simple case, quite unassuming, but her breath always catches at the sight of it, knowing what it contains. The gold of the medal and the crisp red and white of the ribbon stand out in deep contrast to the dark background of the case as she pops the lid open, and for the briefest of moments, a genuine smile of pride tugs at the corner of her lips. Just slightly, and not for more than a second either, but it's still the most genuine smile she's worn in months.

She remembers with striking clarity the day her father had trusted her nine year old hands with this, just before heading overseas. The note inside had comforted her immensely then; she hadn't known when he would come home, but the simple words on that single, folded sheet of paper had granted her the certainty she'd needed. Never once had she questioned the truth behind his promise – she'd believed it until the very day that he was picking her up and spinning her in his arms again.

The night he'd come home, just a few days before Christmas, she'd tried to give the medal back to him. But he'd simply smiled, pride apparent in his eyes as he met his daughter's gaze. He'd praised her for keeping it safe, taking such great care of it. "_I think_," he'd said, gently lifting her into his lap, "_that it would be a shame to take it out of such good hands, don't you?" _

And it had been in her safe possession ever since.

Closing her eyes, Kensi thinks about the night several years later that changed everything, a night not unlike any other that had begun with a mere request to go to the movies with some friends. After the initial no, she'd tried every tactic to get her father to change his mind – pleading, bargaining, promising to be home well before midnight, promising to go straight there and come straight home. His answer had steadfastly remained the same, though.

And Kensi's determination only grew. She's only a few months older now, though she likes to think she's a lot wiser – it all seems so silly to her now. So silly, how determined she'd been to make it to that particular movie on that particular night. So silly, how a simple, two letter word could make her feel as if the world were ending (oh, how little she'd known about that then). But it had, and Kensi had decided she _wasn't_ taking no for an answer.

Ten minutes after her father had left for some bar to meet up with some of his buddies, she skillfully slipped out her bedroom window (much the same way she had tonight) and, at the end of the street, she met _not_ the friends she'd told her father she wanted to go to the movies with, but the boy who had actually asked her. The boy who awakened butterflies in her belly; the boy who melted her with just a smile. The boy that teenage Kensi would have given _anything_ for him to notice her…and then when he did, it put her on cloud nine.

Her father was a different story, though – his disapproval was no secret. Whether because he wasn't the same perfect student or perfectly-behaved teenager Kensi was (most of the time, anyway) or because he was just the very first boy to catch Kensi's eye, she'll never know. All she knows is that somehow, getting out of the house to see _Titanic_ with this particular boy had been the absolute _most _important thing on her mind that night and she was going to do it, consequences be damned.

Because, after all, when you're fifteen, you don't just say no to the boy that makes your heart flutter like that. It'd been teenage infatuation at its strongest, enough to turn daddy's little girl into a rebel. Well, for one night, anyway.

One night, though, was all it took.

She'd disobeyed, and the fates had chosen to forever leave her unable to disobey him again.

She doesn't think she'll ever see it as anything other than punishment. What if she'd accepted his decision and stayed home that night? What if she hadn't used the skills that _he_ had taught her to sneak out of her bedroom that night? What if - instead of arguing that if he was going out, then she should be able to as well – she'd convinced _him_ to stay home that night too? What if, instead of stomping to her room and slamming the door in teenage fury, she'd attempted to make it one of the many father-daughter nights they often shared?

Those questions keep her awake late into the night as she tosses and turns in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar house surrounded by unfamiliar family. It's been months now – over half a year, in fact – but no matter how many nights she's there, it's never going to be home to her. Home is but a shattered concept now, nothing left but ghosts of years that ended far too soon, nothing but memories that dance just outside of her grasp, taunting her.

And haunting her.

Her stomach lurches as she remembers the last words she'd ever spoken to him, words filled with anger and frustration that she'd lobbed down the stairs at him; words she'd never truly meant, words she wishes every single night that she could take back.

She can't, though, and the guilt weighs heavily upon her teenage shoulders, the burden far too much for her tiny frame to carry. But carry it she does, because that _is_ what she does. That's what Kensi Blye does.

After all, he'd always taught her to be strong.

Even when it feels as if she's being systematically ripped apart at the seams.

With deft yet trembling fingers, she gently unfolds the note she's unfolded and refolded perhaps a million times by now. The words are just as sharp and as clear as they were the first time she read them, almost as if they'd been penned yesterday – of course, Kensi knows better, but it doesn't stop her from wishing exactly that as the words settle once more over her.

_Keep an eye on this, baby girl. I'll be back for it someday._

But this time, he won't. He won't be back for it, ever, and Kensi's vision blurs with the tears she's fighting to hold back, the tears she's _so damned tired_ of crying. It's a lie forever immortalized on paper, because as much as she hopes, as much as she prays to a God she's not quite sure she believes in anymore, as much as she wishes on stars and dandelions and clocks that show 11:11, she knows none of it changes anything.

He's _gone_.

And he's not coming back. Not today, nor someday either – that's a promise that will never be fulfilled.

_"Always keep your promises, baby girl," _he'd told her once. _"If it's worth giving your word for in the first place, then it's worth following through. No matter how long it takes. Never go back on your word."_

Logically, she _knows_ she can't hold him to a promise he'd originally made to her over five years ago. But there's no logic in heartache, no logic in grief, no logic in the agony she's lived through every single day since the news reached her ears. Suddenly, on this Christmas Eve that finds her alone on the beach instead of assimilating into the happy family she wants no part of, it's a broken promise that shakes her to the core as she stares down at his words: no matter what they say, he's never coming home.

For a moment, Kensi's seized by fury; she's seized by a frighteningly strong desire to hurl that medal as far as she can into the ocean. She'd promised she'd take care of it, but _he'd_ promised that he would come home. Why should she hold onto her end of the deal?

And then the guilt, the grief for such a thought hits her like a punch to the stomach. Hits her so hard that she's literally nauseated, and then she's on her knees in the sand before she even realizes her legs were wobbling. And it's there that the cascade begins – it begins, and Kensi's powerless to stop it. Trembling gives way to full out shaking and the burn in her eyes becomes too much to bear. Still, she squeezes her eyes shut, fighting it _so very hard_, but it's the first few tears that spill onto her cheeks that break any of the resolve she has left.

Right there, on her knees in the middle of the nearly deserted beach, she crumbles into desperate, agonized sobs. They wrack her small frame with more power than she can even comprehend because after this long, it's not supposed to hurt this much. It's _not_. It's just _not_.

And yet it does – it hurts more than _anything_ Kensi's ever felt before. Her stomach aches, her lungs burn, and her heart…her heart feels as if it's constantly being torn into tinier and tinier pieces. And so she cries.

She cries until she's got nothing left to cry. Cries until the tears run dry, until the force behind each heavy sob fades to nothing more than exhaustion, leaving her utterly devoid of energy there on the beach. She numbs as the sky darkens to match her mood, as the undeniable chill in the night air begins to bite at her bare skin. Kensi makes no move to cover her arms, though, whether out of exhaustion or failure to care, she's not sure.

She's not sure how long she stays there, hidden in the darkness and her own despair. At some point, just before the night swallows her completely, she finds herself reaching into her pocket and retrieving one more of her dad's possessions, his watch. One day it will stop, Kensi knows, but for now it continues to tick, keeping perfect time, and that offers a comfort that Kensi can't quite comprehend. The band is much too big for her slender wrist; she's tried to fasten it as tightly as possible countless times, but still the timepiece merely slips off over her hand. Doesn't stop her from always keeping it nearby, though, just as close as she keeps his medal.

Looking down at it in the almost nonexistent light, Kensi somehow manages to see the hands well enough to catch the time. It's later than she'd thought now, and she frowns, thinking back to the family from which she'd tried to escape. They'll be looking for her, she knows. The knock on her locked bedroom door will go unanswered; the call of her name unheard. She wonders briefly if they'll persist; she hopes they don't. There's no appeal to her in sharing Christmas Eve with family she barely even knows, family she's pretty sure only took her in because _that's what family does_. She doesn't belong with them; it doesn't feel like home and day by day she's increasingly certain that once she has a college acceptance in her pocket, she's not going to look back.

She wishes she had that choice right now, because the thought of squeezing herself into a spot at the crowded table and sharing in the inherent cheer of Christmas dinner makes her heart clench painfully, because she knows the one person she wishes she could be spending Christmas with…she'll never share a Christmas with him again. The thought of opening gifts and having to paste a bright smile on her face leaves her feeling more than just a tiny bit ill. The thought of having to cheerfully help put together any number of Caleb's inevitable 'some assembly required' toys leaves her thinking of nothing but the many projects she and her dad had shared over the years – some simple, some more complicated, some that remain to this day unfinished. Some that will forever remain unfinished.

Her heart clenches again, but Kensi somehow fights off the fresh wave of tears that threatens to fall. Staying strong, after all, was one of the most important lessons he'd taught her.

And that's exactly what she'll do because she's not going to let him down again.

Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, Kensi reverently slips the watch back into her pocket and turns her attention again to the open case resting on the sand in front of her; it had fallen from her grasp as the tears had taken hold. Reaching out for it, Kensi gently traces her thumb over the face of her dad's medal, brushing away stray tears and renegade grains of sand. Only when she's sure that it's back in pristine condition does she carefully tuck his note back into the case with it. And then, she slowly closes the lid again, the small click echoing in her ears much louder than the crashing waves of the sea.

Then, Kensi shakily pulls herself to her feet again, slipping the case back into her bag and dusting the sand off of herself. No matter how much she wants to disappear tonight, she _knows_ she has to go back. She _has_ to.

She knows he'd expect that of her.

She knows he'd want her to stay strong.

Knows he'd want her to fight through the pain; knows he'd want her to endure.

Silently, she promises him that. Rubbing the last of her tears away, Kensi turns her back to the ocean and slowly begins to make her way back, ignoring every fiber of her being that protests her every step. _Blyes don't run away._

And so she'll fight through this Christmas with a heavy heart. She'll force the smiles and fake the laughter; she'll pretend the gifts she opens are gifts she's wanted all year when really, there's only one thing she wants and that's the one thing she can never have again.

Even though she'll spend the evening surrounded by relatives, there'll be no denying that she doesn't belong with them. In the end, _her_ family is gone.

This Christmas, she feels nothing more than utterly alone.

* * *

><p><em>to be continued<em>


	2. three hundred & sixty five days

**/2/**

She awakens with a searing headache; so agonizing, in fact, that Kensi feels her head might split right in two. Her eyes open slowly, experimentally; it takes her a moment to realize she's gazing up at the ceiling of her den rather than the ceiling of her bedroom. Rest (as if it can be called that, she thinks bitterly) had come to her on the couch last night, just like so many other nights of the past year – it hasn't done any favors for her back, but it's far better than laying awake for hours in the cold loneliness of her bed.

Beams of wintery sunlight peek through the curtains, reaching her eyes and leaving her wincing in pain – just the sight has the throbbing in her head intensifying tenfold. It's a different kind of light that hits her much deeper, though – a seemingly innocent, twinkling cadence of lights that stabs her like a knife right in the heart.

The state of the coffee table and the harsh, gritty feel of dried tears on her cheeks explain away the furious pounding in her head. With a quiet groan, Kensi pulls herself upright, her eyes sweeping over the empty bottles littering the table. For a brief moment, she thinks maybe she's a bit young for this, but as the midnight hour had come to pass, she'd found herself desperate to drown her sorrows.

It had worked at the time, but now they've resurfaced with an unholy vengeance by the harsh light of dawn. Provided both by the sun and the seemingly innocent twinkle of Christmas lights strung upon her tree, that harsh light illuminates the equally harsh truth that's taken up residence in her heavy heart on this less than joyful morning.

Kensi Blye is twenty-two and still young enough to believe in admittedly childish hopes about the magic of the season (even though it's been almost a decade since she's had a truly magical Christmas).

But most of all, she's twenty-two and still in love with a man who'd disappeared without even a whispered goodbye exactly three hundred and sixty five days ago.

Three hundred and sixty five days…

It's been an entire year since that dreadful Christmas morning when she'd awoken cold and alone in their bed; an entire year since she'd padded down the darkened hallway and into the quiet den, trying so desperately to ignore the somber chill in the air. She'd tried to reason with herself - maybe he'd left to pick up breakfast (even though they'd specifically planned to make breakfast together); maybe he was out picking up one final last minute Christmas surprise (though the gifts had been under the tree for weeks – unlike her, Jack had never been the type to leave things until the last minute); maybe an emergency had come up (though she knows he would have woken her if that were the case).

Countless reasons. Countless excuses.

Three hundred and sixty five days of grasping at straws, crafting together more and more elaborate reasons as to why he would have left her on Christmas morning. Three hundred and sixty five days of believing that he was still out there, waiting for her, waiting to come home to her. They'd had _plans_, after all – elaborate plans for the future and never once had she doubted his commitment to those plans. He _had_ to come back to her. He _had_ to.

She'd convinced herself that he'd gotten himself in trouble, the sort of bind he couldn't get himself out of. And so, as the Christmas decorations were reboxed and put away, Kensi had made her resolution for the new year – she was going to find him and bring him home.

He _loved_ her.

He couldn't just _choose_ to leave her, could he?

That's a possibility Kensi refused to let herself believe – then, _or_ now. It hurts too much, and in the end, it was far easier to run herself into the ground than to surrender to the truth. And so she'd searched.

She'd chased leads, sought out his friends, his family, everyone who'd ever had even the slightest connection to him. She'd scoped out all of his old hangouts; she'd checked all of the hospitals on a frequent basis. She'd turned over every stone looking for him, refusing to let herself feel the discouragement, refusing to let herself admit defeat when every single lead only led her to another dead end.

For three hundred and sixty five days, she'd pushed her schoolwork aside; her grades had suffered dearly as the chase consumed her, becoming quickly the most important part of her life. _Nothing_ was more important than finding Jack; so consumed was she that any sacrifice was worth it if it brought him home to her.

Spring had blossomed into the heat of summer, and summer had quickly faded into fall before her tireless persistence finally began to catch up to her. And now on this winter morning, it's clear that the denial is wearing thin. _She's_ wearing thin and if she forces herself to see the truth, she knows she's been wearing down for months now – not even Kensi Blye has the strength to push through many more months of this.

In the beginning, it had all been so easy – after all, back in the beginning, she'd had an endless supply of hope. Back when it was just days that he'd been gone, back when there was still every possibility that he could come home at any moment. But soon, there were no more friends to question, no more hospitals to search, no more leads to follow.

The case of her missing fiancé has gone as cold as her father's murder case.

Suddenly, the weight of the ring on her finger seems almost too much to bear, but Kensi doesn't dare slip it off. Instead, she slowly pulls herself to her feet, wobbling slightly – from the number of bottles on the coffee table and the slight fuzziness in her brain, she suspects she's still just a bit inebriated. _Not enough_, she thinks bitterly though. _Not nearly enough at all._

Quietly and carefully, she approaches the tree, the strings of light upon it twinkling brightly despite the daylight. That's something that Kensi puts a swift end to with one forceful tug of the cord. The tiny bulbs go immediately dark, but in that absence of light, Kensi swears the memories pulsing through her mind shine that much brighter.

They'd had their share of issues, Kensi and Jack. They were really no different than any other couple out there – the bad times came along with the good. The good times made struggling through the darker moments worth it…at least, it had been worth it to Kensi. She could have _never_ imagined walking away from him, even at the very worst moments.

Certainly, his PTSD had complicated their relationship. It was clear to Kensi that Jack, _her_ Jack, was not the same person that he'd been before he'd been sent overseas. He'd come home a different person, but underneath it all, he was still _hers_. He was still the Jack she'd fallen in love with; he was still the same man who'd gone down on one knee and placed that diamond on her finger.

And he would _always_ be worth fighting for.

Closing her eyes, Kensi swallows hard, once again letting the memories wash over her. If she concentrates hard enough, she can still feel the warmth of his arms around her; she can still feel the gentle press of his lips against her temple. And, above all else, she can still hear the reverent whisper of his voice, the gentle _"I love you"_ he'd offered so, so many times. Sometimes it'd been a greeting, the first words shared in the morning as they woke up together; sometimes they were the first words spoken after a long day, spoken with gratitude over having someone to come home to each night. Sometimes it was a _goodnight_, exchanged through whispers in the dark.

Sometimes, though, it'd been an apology offered with open arms that Kensi would _always_ step back into, because whatever had just happened between them, whatever he had done, whatever they had fought about, that simply wasn't him. The PTSD wasn't Jack. He wasn't defined by that, and Kensi had steadfastly refused to let it define their relationship. It _wasn't_ him.

She'd known that, and she'd fought like hell for him – offering him her arms and her ears whenever he'd needed her to listen, shaking him out of his nightmares, and perhaps beyond all else, simply being there to help hold him up even when she could barely manage to stand herself.

In the end, there was _nothing_ she wouldn't have done for him because losing him simply was _not_ an option.

Kensi hadn't just fallen for him – she'd tumbled utterly head over heels for him.

She _wasn't_ going to give up on him; she wasn't going to give up on _them_.

But then, Jack had done exactly that.

And a year later, Kensi's watching as the very last embers of all the hope she'd had in the beginning are extinguished right before her eyes. Suddenly, three hundred and sixty five days of hope becomes three hundred and sixty five days of denial, and she's finding it impossible to keep denying what's laid out so blatantly in front of her.

She's _alone_.

Biting back a sob, Kensi forces her eyes open again, her gaze drawn quite quickly to the gifts underneath the tree. They seem to mock her, the sparkly paper glimmering in the winter sunlight. Gifts from him to her, gifts she would have opened last year at Christmas, but never did; gifts from her to him, from last year, as well as this year – she hadn't been able to stop herself from picking up the perfect gifts for him, some little trinkets, some more expensive items. It had fueled her hope; it had given her a reason to continue believing that she'd wake up this Christmas to find that he'd come home to her once more.

And really, that's the entire reason her den is in the state it's in. All of her other hopes diminished, Kensi had swept into the first week of December with a mission at her fingertips. She'd forcibly banished all of her heartache and all of her fears and doubts, choosing instead to focus on the last and tiniest sliver of hope she'd had left.

It's childish, she knows. Hardly rational, but then again, even she knows that love is very rarely that. She'd been at the point of believing _anything_ that would have brought him home…even if that _anything_ was a naïve belief that if she did everything in her power to make everything exactly as it was last Christmas, that maybe, _just maybe_, she'd wake up on Christmas morning to find that the past year had been nothing but a horrible dream.

And that was exactly what she'd done. The tree was up in front of the large window in their den, just as it'd been a year before. Bows and ornaments dotted every branch of the tree; underneath it was a simple red treeskirt, covered with gifts in various colors of wrapping paper. And the two stockings hung upon the mantle…the ghost of a smile had touched her lips oh so briefly as she'd placed them, one for her, and one for him. His voice had resonated in her mind as her fingertips traced reverently along the glittery letters of his name. The conversation itself had taken place two years ago, but it's still so clear in Kensi's ears that it gives her chills, even now.

_"Few years from now," he whispers, his breath tickling her cheek. Kensi squirms, curling into his body as his fingertips dance along the length of her spine. "There'll be a few more stockings up there, yeah?" _

_She pushes herself up (which, with the warmth of afterglow alive within her, proves to be quite a challenge) with a hand on his chest, just enough so she can look down into his eyes. She doesn't need to clarify what he means; doesn't need to question what it is that he wants with her; doesn't need to say anything. It's all there in his eyes, setting Kensi's heart a-flutter. He sees her as his future._

_Just as she sees him as hers. _

_That night, she falls in love with him just a little bit more. _

It's a promise of a forever that will never be. Through quickly gathering tears, she gazes down at the diamond on her ring finger, the ring she's never been able to take off. She's seen the pitying looks in her friends' eyes; she's forced herself to humor the one or two who've suggested (gently, though no less painfully) that maybe it's about time to take it off. He's not coming back, they say.

But Kensi's always been stubborn.

And she's just not ready to believe that they're right.

She's not ready to give up on him. She's not ready to give up on the future they could've had.

She'd envisioned a family with him. And his words that night…clearly he'd envisioned one with her as well. The dreams, the visions, they're all so clear in her mind, so very vivid. Kids – two, maybe three; Christmas Eve dinner with his family, with Christmas day saved solely for their own growing family. All she has to do is close her eyes, and she's seeing that future family of theirs, gathered around the tree on Christmas morning, tearing excitedly into gifts and turning the den into a sea of wrapping paper.

Before Jack, she'd been so disillusioned with the idea of family and promises and futures – before him, none of this would have ever found any place in her thoughts.

But Jack…he'd gotten to her unlike anyone else ever has. He'd breached her walls, charming his way into her life and stealing her heart before Kensi ever even realized it was happening.

She'd only realized she was falling for him once it was too late to stop herself.

She'd wanted _everything_ with him.

She'd given him _everything_.

But now, she's left with utterly nothing.

Now, she doesn't even have the hope that's carried her through the entire past year – in her waking moments on this Christmas morning, she finds the last of it completely extinguished.

She has nothing else.

Trembling fingers reach out, gently brushing over the smooth glass of the ornament hanging upon the nearest branch. It's just a simple orb colored a deep, royal blue – to anyone else, it has no meaning. To Kensi, though, it and every other ornament on the tree symbolize nothing but heartache.

Nothing but pain.

Nothing but lies.

Nothing but a future that had literally disappeared as she slept unaware.

Her eyes blur again with tears she's not strong enough to fight – tears of sorrow, tears of confusion, tears of fury. For the first time, she's forced to face the truth she's been denying for three hundred and sixty five days. Jack is _gone_. No amount of searching is going to find him; no amount of hoping is going to bring him home.

He's _gone_.

She'd given him _everything_, and it hadn't been enough for him.

He'd abandoned her.

Just like everyone else.

It's different though, with Jack. It's different because, unlike her father, he'd had the choice. He'd _chosen_ to walk away from her. He'd consciously decided that this wasn't going to work and for whatever reason (Kensi knows she'll never know, but that doesn't stop her from repeatedly going through all of the possibilities), he'd chosen to leave.

He'd chosen to walk away from what they had; chosen to leave her with promises that will never be fulfilled. In one morning, he'd erased every single night they'd spent together and every single morning that they'd awoken in each other's arms; in one morning, he'd taken back every single _I love you_ that they'd ever exchanged.

In one morning, he'd rendered _everything_ irrelevant.

Alongside the heartache she feels this Christmas morning, there's a fury that's growing. A fury directed toward Jack for breaking her heart, but mostly, a fury directed to herself for _allowing_ him to break her heart. How could she have been so blind? Kensi had known he'd never be the same as he'd been before he was deployed; she knew that what they had would never be like it once was. But she'd fought for him. She'd fought harder for him than she'd ever fought for anything else…and it was all for nothing. _Nothing_.

And now, she can't help but question every single promise he'd ever made to her.

If he really loved her, he never would have left her.

If he'd truly wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, he'd _be_ here with her now; she wouldn't have spent the past year chasing leads that led her nowhere.

If she'd _ever _meant a damn thing to him at all…

Those thoughts fill her head without her permission, filling her with more and more grief and pain and fury. Her heart starts pounding angrily against her chest, fiercely pumping blood through her veins. It echoes in her ears, the cadence almost deafening. Her fingers clench into fists, her nails digging sharply into the skin of her palms. Her breath quickens, but it's almost as if the oxygen never makes it to her brain. And then the room begins to spin around her, slowly at first but then accelerating; everything in her vision begins to blur together until she's seeing nothing but red.

_Lies_.

_All lies._

_Everything he ever said to you was a lie._

Almost of its own volition, her hand reaches out one more time for that offending ornament, ripping it harshly from its branch. Holding it in her palm, Kensi glares angrily down at it for a split second. In this moment, the simple blue orb embodies everything pulsing through her body right now – the emotions she can't hold back, the physical pain that erupts within her as she feels her heart finally break; all the promises that she'd been foolish enough to believe (_when_ is she going to learn? _No one_ ever keeps their promises. _No one._), her hatred of this manufactured holiday that had meant so much to her in her childhood…it's all there, staring back at her from the deep blue glass of that ornament.

She can't stop herself. It's an emotional reaction, one she _knows_ she shouldn't give into, but the pain is just too much. With strength built up by years of softball, she furiously hurls that innocent blue orb against the far wall. It hits the very center of the wall and shatters; as the tiny pieces of glass rain down to the floor below, Kensi feels something break inside of her. Her control shatters as the fury takes over, and she can't even see through the tears as one broken ornament becomes two, and two quickly becomes every single one on the tree.

And it's not just the ornaments. Falling to her knees, she angrily tears the paper off of every single gift, those bought last year and those bought just recently. She tears her nails through the paper, shoving the unwanted gifts harshly aside once the paper is gone. Tears sting her eyes as she rips the tinsel and the lights down, undoing what had taken meticulous hours of preparation in less than thirty minutes.

And then suddenly, it's all over. It's all over but the tears, and they hit her with a strength that she's powerless to fight. The sobs claim her, shaking her body and leaving her raw as a full year's worth of heartache finally claws its way to the surface. She's got no more hope to mask it with, after all. She's got nothing with which to fight it back.

So she cries the tears she's ignored in her year-long quest to find him. She cries for the man she'd fallen in love with, for the man who went off to fight and came back a completely different person; she cries for the relationship that slipped from her fingers in the night; she cries for the family they could have had, for the future they would have made together.

She cries because she's still in love with him; she cries because her heart's been ripped to shreds and she thinks she'll probably never be whole again.

She cries because even though she's grown up believing in the importance of being strong and independent, there's still a very large part of her that _needs_ him back because despite the issues they'd had, he's still the best damn thing to ever happen to her and the thought that she wasn't strong enough, good enough, _whatever_ enough to keep him grounded, to keep him there with her, it's like a sword to her already injured heart.

She's not sure how long she lays there on the cold floor simply staring blankly up at the ceiling after the tears finally subside. All she knows is that it's evening by the time she finally pulls herself together, drawing herself to her knees again as she glances around at the destruction in her den – strangely, there's a momentary feeling of satisfaction, but it's gone so quickly that Kensi's certain she only just imagined it.

What she doesn't imagine is the stickiness of her hands, coupled with a familiar metallic scent. Looking down through still blurred eyes, there's no mistaking the dark red of dried blood that covers her palms, her skin pierced, no doubt, by the broken glass that litters her den. She'd felt nothing, though – no indication of pain outside of the agony in her heart. Even now, even as she experimentally clenches her fists, she only feels numbness.

And while the numbness in itself is an improvement, it carries with it an emptiness – a cold, dark emptiness from which there is no escape. It's the cold, dark emptiness of finality, and as Kensi glances blankly at the debris surrounding her, there's no denying the truth anymore.

It's all over now.

They're over.

There's no more Kensi and Jack.

He's not coming back to her.

And Kensi…she needs to let him go.

Pulling herself shakily to her feet, she steps briefly into the kitchen to rinse and bandage her hands, the whole time biting the inside of her cheek in a staunch refusal to allow any more tears to escape her eyes. She's cried for him, she's bled for him…she can't give him anything else. She _can't_.

Before she returns to the den, she grabs a box of garbage bags. Her entire year has been consumed by one mission – finding Jack. Now though, it's time to lay that mission to rest, no matter how much it hurts to walk away, no matter how guilty she feels for giving up on him (never mind that he'd given up on her first). She's _done_ with this; she's _done_ with the false hope and the maybes and the rollercoaster of emotions she's ridden for the past year. She's _done_ with all of that.

And she's done with this stupid holiday too.

By nightfall, there are no more hints of Christmas in her den. The tree is gone, the ornaments, both shattered and unbroken, are swept away and bagged out by the curb for trash collection; the stockings are stuffed away forever, and the gifts, when she's able to look at them again, they'll go to one of the many shelters in this town. Someone out there will benefit from her heartbreak, at least.

She knows it'll take some time to let him go completely, but once she does, she knows she'll never make the same mistake of letting anyone get that close to her heart again. It's not worth the inevitable pain, she firmly believes. And she _never_ wants to feel like this again; never wants to lose control like that again.

The only promises she can believe in are the promises she makes to herself; repeating this new mantra over and over again in her head, Kensi firmly promises herself that this is the very last Christmas she'll ever spend alone.

Because she's not doing Christmas anymore.

Never again, she swears.

Never again.

She's _done._

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><p><em>to be continued<em>


	3. the beauty of letting go

_Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the response this story has gotten so far. Kensi is not an easy character to write as it is, and then what do I do but decide to write her teenage and early-twenties self! Needless to say, that has definitely been a challenge to write, & I am SO happy you guys have enjoyed it thus far. Two more to go after this one, and even though the holidays are over, I'm hoping you guys stick with me 'cause (in my opinion, of course, heh) up next is where the fun starts. ;) Until then, hope you all have a safe & happy new year!_

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><p><strong>3/**

"You did good out there today."

The voice, quiet and deliberate, breaks the rapt attention she'd been giving to the usual post-assignment paperwork. Blinking away from her computer screen, she smiles slightly, taking the compliment from her team leader for all that it is. He's not a man of many words, she's discovered in her short time here – when Callen offers praise, he means it. Wouldn't waste the breath otherwise, she thinks.

It's one of only a few things she's discovered about G. Callen – other than that, the man remains a mystery and for now, that's quite all right with Kensi.

It's late and most of the office is quiet; it had begun emptying out earlier than usual as people made their way out for Christmas Eve. Aside from various goodies (some homemade, most store-bought, but tasty all the same) brought in and a few tasteful decorations here and there, it's been business as usual here and for that, Kensi's infinitely grateful.

She's also infinitely grateful for the case that found its way onto their desks just a couple days before, pretty much ensuring the presence of work for the next several days. The necessary field work, plus the necessary follow-up reports…yeah, there's tons to finish up even though the fieldwork part of the case was closed early that afternoon.

And, considering the minor complication that had taken place that morning, Kensi's certain she can stretch the paperwork out at least until the 26th if she tries hard enough. She smirks slightly, knowing that Hetty will see straight through the extra detail in this one report (it's by _far_ the most detailed one Kensi's ever written), but she also knows enough to know that Hetty won't question it.

For that, she is glad, because Kensi Blye is twenty-four, the newest junior field agent with the NCIS Office of Special Projects, and probably much, much too eager for the chance to work straight through the holidays. She's hidden it well, though (she thinks), though really, she needn't bother – for once in her life, she seems to be surrounded by people who think as little of the holidays as she does.

It's not so much of a distaste for the holidays as much as it's an indifference, she's noticed – it's almost as though they, like her, really have no reason to care. And the one with the greatest indifference about Christmas is the one who occupies the bullpen with her now, the team leader, Callen – it strikes her then that she realizes she doesn't actually know his first name, just the letter G. He's just…Callen. She files that away in her mind; maybe she'll ask him one day, maybe when they know each other a little better. Then again, maybe she won't.

She watches him for a moment as he pours himself a cup of coffee – briefly, she thinks perhaps she should warn him (after all, it's not fresh) but he's got the cup to his lips and is wincing in displeasure before she can even summon her voice. Instead, she just lifts a hand to hide the slight smirk at her lips. She's learned by now not to trust the coffee in the office – she's got a favorite little coffeeshop she stops by most mornings. Another moment passes before she breaks the silence. "I didn't know you were still here," she says, stretching her legs under her desk.

Coffee forgotten, Callen smirks and turns her comment around on her, taking the focus off of him. He's quite good at that; drives Hetty insane most days. "See, that's how I know you're still a rookie – questions like that," he quips. "The seasoned pros…and people like Sam who like to _think_ they're seasoned pros, they're surprised when I _do_ leave, not when they see I'm still here."

There's a teasing lilt in his voice that's directed at her, but underneath it is a slight note of self-deprecation – just enough that Kensi's not entirely sure if she should chuckle or not. In the end, she merely shifts in her seat, a bit uncomfortable with the silence filling the air between them. "No plans tonight?" she asks finally, watching warily as her seemingly distant team leader approaches her.

He perches on the corner of her desk, looking appraisingly down at her and Kensi fights the urge to squirm under the intensity of his gaze. She's gotten the impression more than once that those piercing blue eyes of his can see straight through her and tonight's no exception. Suddenly, she's feeling just a bit exposed here, alone in the dark office, her face lit by the soft glow of her computer screen and she's thankful when finally he speaks again. "No plans," he answers lightly, then nods his head toward Kensi's open laptop. "You know that report'll wait a couple of days, right?"

She grins slightly, somewhat doubting the truth of that. "So that's what 'as soon as possible' means now? 'Whenever I get around to it'?"

He smirks, thinking about his own stack of paperwork. "That's how I interpret it."

"Uh-huh." She shakes her head in amusement. "Somehow I doubt Hetty's going to let me off the hook just because I tell her you say it's okay." She lifts a brow then, as if she's just catching on to Callen's little scheme - really though, she'd caught on at the very beginning. "Then again…how do I know you're _not_ trying to get me in trouble with Hetty?"

Callen throws a hand over his heart, almost as if wounded. "Would I do that?"

"Yes."

"What good reason could I _possibly_ have for wanting to get you in trouble with Hetty?"

His lips quirk upward just a bit, just enough to let Kensi know she's not that far off of the mark. By now, she's begun to see through most of their 'newbie hazing' schemes, but that doesn't stop them from trying. Of course it doesn't. "Oh, I don't know," she says, a grin of her own tugging at her lips. "You get Hetty to yell at me, then that buys you a little more time to keep ignoring all those expense reports you keep ignoring."

He doesn't even try to deny it. "Well then, surely you see that you should take one for the team, Agent Blye."

Kensi chuckles, her eyes back to the screen in front of her. "Not this time. You're on your own."

"Right. I see how it is." He smirks. "In that case, I want that report to review myself by six AM."

"Fine." She smiles sweetly and turns her dark eyes back to him after a few keystrokes and a few clicks. "In your inbox and ready for review _now_." Truth is, she's been done with that report for hours – she's been using it for distraction. Add a few more details here and there, forget what night it is for just a bit longer. It's been working so far...but now, she realizes, she just submitted her last reason for camping out at the office tonight.

He chuckles amusedly, shaking his head. Really, he shouldn't be surprised – since she joined the team, Kensi has been nothing if not on top of her game. It's yet another indication of what he's been realizing day by day – Kensi's _good_.

She's _really_ good. So much so that she intrigues him, to be honest. Callen had noticed something about her from her very first assignment with them – she's different from the scores of other new agents that have come and gone over the past couple of years. She's new and she's young, just like all the others, but Kensi…there's just something different about her. Hetty's brought in plenty of new recruits in the past couple years, but Kensi is the first one that Callen thinks might actually last.

Not everyone can do this job they do, after all.

It makes him wonder though, just what kinds of demons are in her past that makes her fit the same mold as he and Sam? He knows they have to be there…and he's knows that by wondering, he's starting to break the rule about attachment he'd put firmly in place after the first new agent washed out.

Again he's watching her with that unsettling gaze of his, and Kensi notes that he doesn't seem to be in any real hurry to leave. It's the silence that unsettles her more than anything though, she thinks - she can't read him, but knows he's reading her - as the team leader, that's part of his job. Knows it's part of his job, but that doesn't mean Kensi likes it. She's never quite realized how grateful she is for Sam until tonight either - if it were just her and Callen, she's not sure there would ever be much more than this heavy quiet. Sam provides a witty barrier from that.

Finally, Kensi lifts a hand to stifle a yawn, though perhaps it's a bit more for show than usual. "Maybe you're right," she says, slowly closing her laptop and meeting his gaze. "Christmas Eve, after all." She shrugs. "Starting to think maybe a drink or two would be a nice way to end this day." Kensi pauses for a moment, watching him carefully. "You in?"

The only reason she extends the invitation is because she _knows_ he'll say no. Callen _always_ says no. Macy had invited him along the night she'd taken Kensi out after her first shootout; Kensi herself had offered a couple of times after that, but Callen's never taken her up on any of them. She has no reason to think he'll accept tonight, which makes it a polite yet safe offer.

But of course, tonight _would_ be the night he chooses to surprise her. Kensi nearly chokes when the words that leave his lips aren't his usual, polite '_nah, maybe next time._' "Been a long day," he agrees, shrugging nonchalantly. "Why not?"

Outwardly calm, Kensi stretches lightly, wincing for good measure at the burn in her overworked muscles – she's nowhere remotely close to being out of shape, but that really doesn't mean much when she's finding her shoulder smashed into a brick wall. Yet another battle scar, she thinks wryly. Of course, she hadn't let it slow her down in the moment; now, though, she's feeling the pain. It's dull and mostly annoying rather than causing pain, but it's bothering her nonetheless. "Then again, a hot bubble bath and an early crash into bed sounds pretty damn good too…"

Callen smirks at her backpedaling, pure amusement twinkling in his blue eyes. "Did you really just invite me to get a drink…and then _uninvite _yourself?"

Kensi answers much too quickly. "No."

"I think you did."

"I did not. I was just…thinking out loud," she defends.

"Uh-huh." He's not convinced…but he's willing to let it slide. Spirit of the season, and all.

In fact, he's just about to bid her goodnight when something catches his attention. At that moment, Kensi reaches up, tucking her hair behind her ears. The low light in the office catches her just right and Callen finds his eyes immediately drawn to her neckline as a piece of jewelry slips into view with a slight glimmer. The chain is simple enough, but it's what's on the chain that catches Callen's attention. Granted, Kensi's only been part of his team for a few months now, but in all that time, he can't remember ever seeing her with elaborate jewelry – after all, in their job, it's not really practical.

In fact, now that he thinks about it, the watch at her wrist is really the _only_ jewelry he's ever noticed on her – he'd rather discreetly peeked at her fingers a few times during her first few days with them, noticing very quickly the lack of a ring there. Rings mean commitment, he knows; and commitment means distraction. And distraction often means delayed judgment in the field. He doesn't worry about that so much with Sam anymore, but that doesn't mean he'd been in a hurry to take on a new agent with scores of connections and outside commitments. "Interesting necklace," he says quietly, driven partially by that concern, and partially by genuine curiosity.

Kensi stiffens immediately – _that_ quickly piques Callen's interest. He watches closely as she lifts a hand, closing her fingers around the ring dangling from the chain. She takes a moment, simply turning the ring in her fingers before swallowing hard and offering what she hopes is an indifferent shrug. "It's nothing," she replies softly, her quiet denial of what she once had opening up wounds she'd almost convinced herself were healed. "It's just a little trinket."

Anyone else would have no trouble believing her – Kensi's skilled, after all. But Callen…he's better. He's been doing this job for far longer than she has. He doesn't miss the reverence in her touch as her fingers dance over the diamonds in the ring; he doesn't miss the way her lips purse and her eyes close briefly, almost as if she's reminded of something painful, something in the – he guesses – not quite so distant past, something that's never really completely faded.

And he sure doesn't miss the way she finally tucks the ring beneath the neckline of her top, hiding it from his sight, likely wishing she could hide it away from her own thoughts as well.

It all happens in the span of barely a minute, but Callen can tell there's a lengthy story there.

He can also tell she's not ready to relive whatever that story is.

He'll give her that tonight; she's still new, but there's no denying the immense amount of respect he's developed for her over the past few months. "Forget the beer," he says abruptly, jarring her once more from her thoughts. He pushes himself off of her desk before repeating the words he'd offered moments before in greeting on this quiet Christmas Eve – they're words he means completely. "You did good out there today. In fact, when it started getting dicey out there earlier, I'd say you probably saved Sam's ass."

And his own, likely, but he doesn't admit that. No reason to give the new girl _too_ much of an ego boost this early on. "Let me buy you dinner."

It's not a proposal for a date – no, far from it. After all, he simply doesn't date law enforcement, and Kensi…well, it may not be on her finger, but Callen knows an engagement ring when he sees it. He doesn't know the story there, but he can infer enough to know that, on some level, at least, she's spoken for.

Those barriers well in place, he has no issue reaching out to her now. It's his way of welcoming her into the fold; welcoming her into their team. Until now, he's kept his distance; knows Sam's been keeping his as well. And it's nothing personal – it does neither of them any good to grow attached to a new agent who isn't going to last. They've been there, done that.

But Kensi Blye is not like the rest.

She's going to last.

Hetty had told him that in the beginning; she'd told him that this one was different. He'd argued then…but not now. She's _good_. If how she handled the quick change in the game today when things had begun spinning out of their control is any indication, she's one hell of a born operator.

She's shaking her head before Callen even finishes speaking. "Maybe some other time," she declines, but Callen's used those words plenty of times in the past to know that she doesn't really have any intention of taking him up on that offer, at least, not for the time being. "Besides," she continues, remembering bits of pieces from a conversation earlier in the week, "didn't Sam invite you to have Christmas dinner with his family?"

Callen smirks. "He did. It's just that, well, I don't really think you want me to go."

Kensi lifts a brow at his playful proclamation. "_I_ don't want you to go?"

"Nope."

He doesn't elaborate. Instead, he waits for Kensi to push – she knows, though, from the glint in his eyes that by pushing, she's setting herself a trap. "What reason could I _possibly_ have for not wanting you to go to Sam's for Christmas dinner?"

Callen shrugs. "Teams are like the three musketeers," he says with a grin. "Quite fitting, 'cause there are three of us now…but yeah, that whole 'all for one and one for all' thing?" He pauses, allows a beat to pass before continuing. "We take that pretty seriously around here. And, you see, I don't exactly trust myself not to, uh, _accidentally_ let it slip that you've got nowhere to go for Christmas." He flashes her a grin then, and Kensi thinks for a moment that it might actually be the closest to a real smile she's ever seen from this man. "I bet it doesn't even take five minutes before we're both back here to pry you away from this desk and drag you to dinner too."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"You _wouldn't_."

He stares her down, noting with a bit of pride that she doesn't back down. In the end, he's the one who surrenders first, though with a smirk, one that says that he _could_ have bested her at this contest if he'd wanted to. "Fine. You're right. I wouldn't." He throws her a wink as he begins to walk away. "But only because I saw your shooting today…and I really don't want to be on the wrong side of that."

"Yeah. Funny," she retorts. She can't fight back a grin of pride, though - that's another compliment on her abilities.

He catches her grin as he turns back and knows exactly what it is. And really, she _should_ feel that kind of pride, because she's _damn_ good at this job for a junior agent. But, there _is_ a line... "Hey, Kens? Don't get _too_ cocky," he quips, half playful, half serious. He pauses for a beat, but when he speaks again, the playful tone is gone - his next words are one hundred percent serious. "Because that's when you get yourself into trouble - when you get _too_ cocky. Too comfortable."

He expects a sharp-witted retort in return. That isn't what he gets, though. Even from the distance he's put between them, he catches the darkness that briefly flits through her eyes, though it's gone as quickly as it had come. Hesitating for a second, Kensi flicks her tongue over her lips, then nods almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. Believe me, I know."

For the first time, he wants to ask, because with that simple reply, she's turned what he knew before to be a story there into an entire epic.

In the end, though, he of course doesn't ask. Instead, he calls out to her one more time, letting the subject drop as he gestures to his phone. "Hey, you know, if you change your mind about dinner..."

Kensi forces a smile. "Thanks, Callen."

Callen nods. "And, uh, I meant what I said, by the way," he says quietly. "You did great out there today." And then he turns to go, his footsteps fading with him into the distance as he leaves Kensi alone once more.

For a brief second, she considers his parting offer. It's a kind gesture, that much she can't deny. It's not something he's in any way obligated to offer.

She knows she won't change her mind, though.

It's another hour before she finally sighs and decides to head out for the night. She's not sure if it's the residual adrenaline from the action earlier in the day, or if it's just how close to home her conversation with Callen had drifted, but she's feeling unsettled as she walks out into the mild, California air. Briefly, she thinks about hitting up one of a number of her favorite clubs in town – have a drink or two, dance away the remnants of the day, maybe leave with a hand at the small of her back. She knows she's not the only single twenty-something in LA tonight; knows she wouldn't have to look very hard to find someone willing to share her bed for the night. No commitments, no attachment, the comfort of a warm body without the emotion – it's how she's gotten by for the past two years, and it's worked for her.

Well, it works as long as she can ignore the empty feeling the mornings after seem to leave her with. Luckily, the demands of becoming an agent have taken over much of the time she otherwise would have ended up dwelling upon that.

In the end, it's not a club or a bar that she finds herself at later that night, but her own apartment. The exhaustion wins out…at least, that's what she tells herself it is. That's the easiest answer, anyway. She treats herself to a scalding shower, closing her eyes and simply letting the water rush over her sore muscles. Afterward, dressed in an old pair of sweatpants and a simple tank top, she stands before the full length mirror in her bedroom, eyeing in her reflection the chain around her neck.

It's been three years, she knows. One year of tireless searching, and two years of facing the reality, the utterly debilitating truth. Two years of trying to heal – something she hasn't quite accomplished, if the way her heart clenched when Callen pointed out her ring is any indication. There are still reminders of Jack everywhere, even though she's moved and tried to physically erase all trace of him from her life. Erasing him from her home is one thing; untangling him from her heart is another battle entirely.

But she's getting there, she thinks. Three years ago, that Christmas Eve night before the morning she woke alone, she couldn't _imagine_ living her life without him. Couldn't imagine letting him go; couldn't imagine not having him with her. Now…day by day, it's getting easier. It's _not_ easy, not by any means, but she manages to pull herself out of bed (or from the couch..._usually_ from the couch) each morning; she manages to push herself into work each day. She manages to _live_.

Somewhere within, she knows these two parts of her life can't continue to overlap. She can't move on if she continues to hold onto him.

She's just…never been ready to let go.

She's still not.

Closing her fingers around the ring Jack had given her, Kensi lets her mind drift back just a few hours. Callen's words echo in her ears – in some ways, he'd pushed her into a corner when he'd asked about the ring. Not pressed into a corner between him and some other entity, but between her past and her future. She'd never meant for him (or anyone else, either) to see that – it's not something she's willing to share, and doesn't think she'll ever be.

She's far more comfortable letting it go.

She'd rather that part of her past simply fade away.

Because that part of her past, and her future…they're separate, she realizes.

She can't have both.

If she holds onto him, he's going to forever hold her back.

And Kensi Blye is done with being held back.

Her fingers shake, but she manages to find the clasp at the back of the chain and, with only a slight bit of fumbling, she unhooks it. And then, she pauses for but a moment before removing it completely. She lets it fall, chain and ring, into the palm of her hand; indulging for just a moment, Kensi closes her fingers around it, feeling the diamonds against her skin.

It had taken eighteen months for her to find the strength to slip it from her finger; unwilling to part with it completely on that sticky midsummer's day, she'd quickly slipped it onto a chain and clasped it around her neck. She'd felt the bite of betrayal then, heard the same voice that had accused her of giving up on him when she'd stopped searching for him – it's that same voice she hears now, but somehow, it's no longer quite as loud.

She's not sure how long she stands there, eyes closed, ring in her hand. Finally, she swallows hard against the forming lump in her throat; she quickly blinks back the sting in her eyes, refusing to let the tears fall this year. She's cried enough for him.

It's stubbornness as well as sheer determination that keeps the tears at bay and has her opening the small jewelry box on her dresser. Biting her lip, she slowly lowers the ring, chain and all, down onto the velvet lining the box. And then, after another quiet moment, she gently closes the lid, hiding the ring from view for the first time in over three years.

It's a small step, but at the same time, it's the biggest leap she's taken since that fateful Christmas morning.

And though it hurts like hell, there's no denying that underneath that, she feels at least a bit lighter.

With one stray sniffle, she turns her back on the jewelry box and walks away before she can change her mind. She flicks the lightswitch, plunging her bedroom into darkness before quietly padding down the hallway, not quite ready to surrender for the night yet.

She stands in her somewhat bare kitchen – briefly, she thinks that's another habit she needs to make a change to, her affinity for takeout. Jack cooked; she didn't. And so she's basically been living on takeout and whatever could be thrown in the microwave since then. It's probably about time for that to change too. Baby steps, though, she thinks with a small, wry smile. Maybe she'll make that one of her resolutions for the new year. For now, though, she pushes that from her mind.

And then, banishing everything else (Christmas, Jack, the ring in her jewelry box) from her thoughts as well, Kensi pulls a couple bottles of beer from the fridge and a carton of rocky road from the freezer. Then finally she settles in for the night on her couch with the one tradition she (rather ironically, she thinks, considering her growing dislike of the holiday) can't seem to let go of year after year: _Miracle on 34th Street_.

She still wakes alone on Christmas morning.

But this year, it seems to hurt just a little bit less.

* * *

><p><em>to be continued<em>


	4. that pesky invisible mistletoe

**/4/**

"Hospital or me. Your choice."

Kensi had laughed. Deeks had not.

"Dead serious, Kens."

And then he'd presented the same ultimatum one more time. She'd still thought that maybe he was kidding, but one look into his eyes had told her otherwise. And really, it was ridiculous. After all, he'd been with her all evening already; before that, he'd only briefly let her out of his sight after she'd awoken that afternoon, disoriented on the couch in that rather classy motel room. He'd been with her for _hours_.

But apparently, all those hours mean nothing to him. Apparently, the fact that she's _completely fine_ also means nothing to him. She's not dizzy, no longer disoriented. She's steady on her feet (she should point out that she's _still_ more coordinated than he is), and there's nothing funny going on with her vision. She's certain the paramedics would have cleared her…if she had, of course, actually stuck around for them earlier. She hadn't, though, because she didn't need them. Hadn't needed them earlier, and definitely doesn't need a babysitter now.

Because really, it's just a little bump to the head. Okay, maybe it hurts a bit and maybe she's got a nasty bruise flaring up, but she's had this job for a few years now and she's taken plenty of beatings that were far, far worse than this. This…it's _nothing._

And that's exactly what she tells him. "I don't need a babysitter, Deeks," she sighs.

Deeks just grins. "So you've told me. Repeatedly." He gently nudges her with his elbow as she unlocks and opens the front door. "Which is why I gave you the choice between me or the ER." He smirks. "You don't _have_ to choose me."

Kensi rolls her eyes. "Yeah, some choice," she scoffs.

They both know that between the two choices, the ER stands no chance. "Look, Kens, a head injury is a head injury. I know you watch enough TV to know that you don't send someone with a head injury home alone."

Head injury? _Hardly_, she thinks. "I'm fine, Deeks."

"Oh, is that your expert diagnosis? That the exact wording on your chart? Are you a doctor now?" he deadpans.

She glances back at him, her dark eyes challenging him. "Oh, are _you?_"

"An old girlfriend thinks I am."

Kensi snorts. "Any _girlfriend_ of yours needs to be checked for brain damage more than I do." She pushes the door open, then turns back to him, heaving out a rather dramatic sigh. "But _fine_, I guess I'll play into your little scheme to not spend Christmas alone."

Deeks smirks. He's got the playful retort right on the tip of his tongue, but he silences it. She just agreed to what he wants; he's smart enough not to say anything that might jeopardize that. "Well, you know what they say," he quips instead. "Nobody should spend Christmas alone."

She thinks about pointing out that it's actually still Christmas Eve, but she knows Deeks will have a way around that little technicality too. And really, she's not _too_ opposed to the company…she just doesn't want to feel like he's there because she'd had a rough day.

The evening to this point has been surprisingly pleasant. Kensi hadn't known what to expect when Deeks had insisted she tag along on his "date," but once she realized what it was, he thinks she probably shouldn't have been surprised. She's known from the start that he's a good person, but tonight had shown her a side of him she hadn't seen before. And honestly, she'd spent a good portion of their time at the soup kitchen just watching him – watching him interact with people, seeing him bring smiles to even the most dejected of people on this Christmas Eve.

And, despite herself, Kensi had found herself wearing a smile for most of the evening too. Smiles, laughter, a good time in general…aside from the decorations and the Santa hat on both of their heads, she might not have known it was Christmas Eve at all.

In fact, she'd even forgotten the pain in her forehead and the events that had led to it until Deeks was walking her to the car, an arm draped lazily around her shoulders. It'd been then that he'd first presented her with that dreadful ultimatum, the one she'd argued until they were both at her front door.

Kensi's stubborn…but so is Deeks. And _dammit_, she knows he's not going anywhere.

Sighing again, she steps inside, shrugging away the errant thought of shutting the door in his face. He may be annoying at times (okay, much of the time) and he may drive her insane, but Deeks…well, she trusts him. And he _did_ bring a smile to her face during the hardest time of the year to do so. And though she'll never admit it to his face…well, she likes being with him. A lot.

And it's here that she needs to be careful, because Kensi Blye is twenty-seven and even though she needs no more evidence than today to know that there's at least some part of her that's still haunted by a man who disappeared six years ago, there's yet another part of her that knows she's beginning to tread on shaky ground here. The last thing she needs is to open that door again – there's nothing wrong with how things are now, even if it is a bit…lonely at times. But that's just the romantic side of her, the one she tries to keep silent and locked up far, far beneath the surface at all times because it just doesn't pay to let that side rule her. It only leads to pain – always has, probably always will. She's not really willing to take that chance anymore.

So she's definitely not about to fall for some scruffy LAPD detective who's crashed into her life and just won't leave. _Especially_ when that scruffy LAPD detective happens to be her partner.

Even if she _had, _for a brief moment not that long ago, felt that strange flutter deep within as she'd opened her eyes to find him underneath her, his hands brushing the hair back from her sweaty face, his blue eyes dazed (by the rough impact with the ground, _surely_ by the impact) as he'd gazed back up at her. Proximity – that'd been the reason she'd wanted to kiss him then, she reasons. Proximity, the rush of adrenaline, and the mildly clichéd need to reaffirm that she was, in fact, alive. But reminding herself of that day is accomplishing nothing but a slight shiver along her spine, so Kensi forces the memory away and moves further into her apartment, her steps somewhat cautious.

After a moment, she throws the nearest lightswitch, filling the room with a soft light – immediately, Deeks is grateful for that, since, as he takes his first good look around, he's certain that if he'd tried to follow her in the dark, he would have killed himself. From the state of her desk at the mission, to the empty wrappers he finds with alarming frequency stuffed in all the nooks and crannies of her car, he'd long ago established that Kensi is a bit…_disorganized_.

He backtracks in his mind – looking around now, that word is just a bit _tame_ for this. Even _cluttered_ doesn't seem to do it justice. Deeks can't help but shake his head, a smirk at his lips as his eyes take in her living room. It's not _trashed_; he spent his college days in the dorms so he knows quite well what _trashed_ really is. It's just…there's just a lot of _stuff_. Everywhere.

An old girlfriend with way too many shoes had once told him that the biggest shelf in one's home is the floor. And Deeks…well, he's just found the biggest advocate of that belief, he thinks with a grin.

Kensi comes to rest at the far wall, just in front of the kitchen. "You say one word and you're out of here," she warns, fixing him with narrowed eyes. Watching him survey the state of her place, she can just _see_ the clever (so he thinks) comments coming together in his mind.

Deeks just grins, throwing his hands up in defense. "Wasn't gonna."

"You were thinking it."

At that, he can't help but chuckle. "Actually, I was just thinking that something's missing." Not that there's anywhere to _put_ it, he thinks with a silent snicker, but nonetheless, the absence of that particular item had caught his eye fairly quickly. "You don't have a tree." And not only doesn't she have a tree – there's no sign of Christmas _anywhere_. Not even (and this, considering his partner, surprises him) a basket of candy canes or a plate of Christmas cookies anywhere.

It's kind of odd, he thinks. She hadn't seemed put off by any of the festivities at the mission, even helping Hetty string tinsel along the rails on the upper level. She'd been no more annoyed than any of the others with Hetty's little regifting scheme; he'd swear she even smirked at his insistence to keep the scarf. If he hadn't heard her admission to Talbot earlier, he'd have never guessed that this time of year was tough for her.

Kensi shrugs, hoping it comes across as indifferent to his question. "Plenty of trees outside. Why have one inside?"

She slips into the kitchen then and Deeks follows without a second thought. "Oh, why not? You've got everything _else_ inside."

"Thought I told you not to say anything," she reminds him, throwing open the corner cabinet.

He just smirks, watching as she reaches quickly for a bottle of painkillers. She pops a few out into her hand and then swallows them dry; Deeks thinks he probably deserves the glare she throws his way at his next inquiry. "How's your head?"

"Fantastic," she deadpans. He knows it's the closest he's going to get to an admission of pain. He doesn't need the verbal confession though because he can see it – it's in her eyes, in her stance, everything about her. She's not feeling anywhere near fantastic and he wonders just how many of her smiles and laughs at his side tonight at the soup kitchen were merely her wearing her usual game-face.

He takes a step toward her, gauging her reaction as he chooses his words cautiously. "Callen really should have pulled you off the case today…"

The indignance flares, just as he'd known it would. Just as it had earlier. After all, they've been through this once, during the case and Kensi's not sure why he has to bring it back up now. It's done. It's over. There's no case to pull her off of now so what's the point of even rehashing this? "I had it under control, Deeks, and if it were any of the rest of you, you guys wouldn't have stepped away from the case either."

He chuckles softly – of course she assumes he's calling her abilities into question. That's not what he's doing, though – that's not something he'd ever do. After all, he's looking at Kensi Blye here – he'd expect nothing else but for her to handle anything that's thrown at her. "Kensi –"

"Can we just drop this?" she bites out, perhaps a little more harshly than necessary. "I had it handled." The last thing Kensi wants to have to do on any given day is defend her ability to do her job – it's one thing to prove that she's capable, but it's another thing entirely to _have_ to prove it. It makes her a little bitter.

Granted, that's not really the reason for any bitterness that's resurfacing tonight.

It's been several hours, but all the same, Kensi's still kicking herself for how badly she'd misread Talbot. Callen's words from the pier ring back to her; logically, there's no way she should have seen through what LAPD, the entire Navy, and even Talbot's own psychiatrist had missed. And they'd all had the advantage of getting to know Talbot – his psychiatrist had been working with him for _years_. And Kensi…well, she'd known the man for less than twenty-four hours – if all those years weren't enough to break through his story, then how could _anyone_ crack it in under a day?

For Kensi, though, that reasoning isn't good enough.

It's not good enough because no matter how long Talbot had fooled all the others, Kensi _had_ _lived_ with the real thing. She'd woken up morning after morning with the real thing; she'd lain awake at night just waiting for the nightmares the real thing would inevitably plague the man beside her with.

She'd stuck beside him through the darkest of times; she'd held him, comforted him, would have given anything to help him. She'd worked with his psychiatrist; she'd known everything about all of his meds…she'd become an expert on all of it.

She _knows_ this stuff.

As far as she's concerned, it doesn't matter what Callen had said to her.

_She should have seen through it._

Deeks isn't oblivious to the internal battle she's fighting. "You did," he replies, approaching her carefully. "But that's not what I meant." A slight smirk tugs at his lips. "Maybe I'm still learning how you guys do things, but you're the most reckless bunch of _good_ guys I've met. If that'd been me, LAPD would have had me on desk duty before I could blink."

_Oh_. Now Kensi sees where he's going with this…doesn't mean she likes it any better, though. "That's not what happened with the Lasik case. From what I heard, you were pretty banged up and you pushed Hetty to let you go back in."

He winces at the memory; he's glad, though, that Kensi doesn't have all the details of that because if she did, well, she'd have a winning argument here. On the other hand, he at least _had_ seen a doctor after he was injured…even if that doctor _was_ a vet. As far as he's concerned right now, though, a medical degree is a medical degree, and Kensi had been seen by _no one_ holding one. "He knocked you out cold, Kens." He takes a few more steps, his feet echoing almost ridiculously loud in the almost deadly silence of her kitchen. "Callen should have pulled you just for that."

"I was _fine_, Deeks," she snaps. "And if you thought otherwise, you sure weren't speaking up."

He smirks. "Would you have listened if I had?" Predictably, Kensi doesn't answer – sometimes he thinks she forgets just how well he already knows her. True, he hadn't verbalized his concerns earlier – even now, he fights an internal battle with himself over that. He _should_ have made her wait for the paramedics…but then again, it's _Kensi._

There was no way she was going to sit on the couch and wait for them, and she certainly wasn't going to play the part of the cooperative patient while they assessed her. No. She'd gotten herself _far_ too entwined with the case; she was _much_ closer to it than Deeks had been okay with. But it was because of that personal investment, _because_ she'd trusted her instincts only to find herself proven wrong that she wasn't going to sit back and let Callen and Sam take over.

He'd witnessed the determined fire in her eyes as she'd stormed out of the motel after Callen and Sam. He'd known right then and there that there'd been _absolutely_ no chance of that.

And so, rather than insist upon what he _knew_ was best for her health, Deeks had demanded to drive. In the split second where the only choice he'd had was either letting her go alone or taking the lead, he'd done what he thought was best. He couldn't stop her from finishing what she'd started, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let her get any _more_ hurt.

She's his partner, after all. Nothing's more important than having her back.

And in having her back, he's on her side. Talbot might have turned on her, and Jack might have too, and he has no idea how many others might have in the past – considering the height of the walls she puts up, though, he's guessing there've been quite a few.

He won't be one of them. Deeks decides that right then and there.

He watches for a moment as she steps toward the refrigerator and opens it, pulling out a couple of beers. She slides one down the counter toward him, and he catches it with a nod of thanks. It's another moment of an odd, awkward silence before he speaks again, verbalizing something that had gnawed at him all evening. "Okay, I'm going to say something," he begins, uncharacteristically solemn as he leans against the counter.

With a sigh, Kensi lifts her beer to her lips, taking a deep swig. "I wish you wouldn't," she says. She's got an idea of what's coming and it's not really a path she wants to go down tonight.

His lips quirk just slightly – he'd expected that reply, but he doesn't let it deter him. "After what Talbot did, the way he played you and took advantage of…of what you told him," at this, Kensi looks away, but Deeks continues, "I kind of hoped I'd get to be the one to take him out. You believed him; you were ready to do anything to help him. And for him to use what you told him about Jack, trying to relate to him - for him to take that and use it against you, as much as it obviously hurt for you to relive…it takes one hell of a cold bastard to do that." Kensi's tears, her heartache had been genuine; Talbot's PTSD had not. Thinking about it all now, having it all put together in front of him, it makes Deeks' stomach churn.

"World's full of them," Kensi replies quietly with a would-be nonchalant shrug. "Can't kill them all."

"No." With that, he sets his beer down on the counter, placing his full attention on her. "There's something else I wanted to say too," he begins, faltering just slightly. Now _this_ is the conversation he'd put together in his head on the drive home, and, needless to say, it had come together much, much easier then than it is now. "Jack…"

"Deeks."

He doesn't let her interrupt. "The last thing I want to do is say something to disrespect him or you because I know he meant a lot to you," he says, and he swears he can almost see the walls going up. "But I, uh, just – it's his loss, Kens. It's his loss and somewhere out there, he knows what he walked away from and I'd bet it haunts him every damn day. And if he doesn't realize that now, it'll hit him one day. It's going to hit him _hard_."

The feeling behind the words is sincere, but they still sound flat to Deeks' own ears. He's certain she's heard those same words before from plenty of others in the past six years. It's almost cringingly trite, if he's honest. But what else does he have? As far as he's concerned, he's spoken nothing but the truth.

He's known her for less than a year, true, but he's spent plenty of time with her. He's shared moments with her on stakeouts, during late nights finishing up paperwork at the mission, during daily coffee and doughnut runs, and perhaps most significantly at all, that moment when she'd placed her trust in him by the simple act of putting her hands in his in that room of lasers – aside from the near-death aspect of the last one, Deeks knows he wouldn't change a thing about any of it.

And none of it, _none_ of it, has felt anything _remotely _like hitting the ground.

Exhaling heavily, he looks to the floor, aware that he's teetering rather dangerously on that line that separates them. "Anybody who'd walk away from you like that is a damn fool," he finishes softly.

She smiles sadly, silent for a moment as she distracts herself, slowly turning her beer in her hands. "You'd be surprised," she quips wryly. She exhales deeply, contemplation flickering in her eyes. She's never had this conversation before with anyone but herself in the privacy of her mind, and now, she's finding herself wrapped within it for the second time in one day. For reasons that she herself can't quite comprehend, though, she doesn't stop. "You know, I always kind of wondered if…if maybe I could have done more," Kensi says slowly, turning to rest against the side of the counter. "Like there's always going to be something that I could have done to make him stay. But then I think…what else could I have done?"

She lifts her hands slightly, a nonverbal admission of defeat. "I mean, when he came home, my life _stopped_. I was twenty-one, and I literally gave up _everything_ for him. He _became _my life. I'd have done anything to get _my_ Jack back," she ends on a whisper.

Deeks doesn't think he's ever seen her, his strong, independent, beautiful partner look quite so vulnerable before. "There's no way I'd believe you didn't give him enough." He doesn't have to know Jack or twenty-one year old Kensi to know that's absolutely the truth, because Kensi, after all, doesn't do anything halfway. It's all or nothing with her. All or nothing.

Kensi smiles slightly – those are almost the exact same words Sam had spoken to her earlier. No matter how many times she hears it though, she's certain she'll always think there _had_ to have been something else. "You asked if I ever went looking for him," she continues, nodding slowly. "I did. I spent a whole year looking for him. Every bit of free time I had." Pausing, Kensi bites at her lip. "I mean, I looked _everywhere_ for him. Hospitals, shelters, dark alleys…you name it."

And there, her voice wobbles slightly. But _only_ a wobble – she doesn't dare allow it to break. "I guess…he just didn't want to be found."

"Do you wish you _had_ found him?"

She thinks the answer to that quiet question shouldn't be so hard. It is, though, and Kensi's not sure she'll ever have a concrete answer, because she knows that had she found Jack, her life would have likely turned out differently. Some nights, she knows she'd trade the simplicity and lack of complication of her serial dating habits for something a little more stable, a little less lonely…but at the same time, she's got this job that she _loves_ and she may have never found her way to NCIS if Jack hadn't disappeared. She knows it's a trade-off either way…which makes it an incredibly hard question to answer, even now, six years later. "I don't know," she answers finally, shaking her head. "I think a lot of things would be different if I had."

Deeks gives a nod of understanding, but before he has the chance to apologize for pushing, Kensi sighs, gesturing back toward the living room before speaking again. "I haven't had a tree since Jack left because since then, I've done my best to just…pretend the holidays don't exist," she confesses, her gaze finding the floor once more. She _wishes_ she could meet his eyes, but at the same time, she's fearful of the inviting warmth she knows she'd find there. Doesn't know that she can handle that right now. "My first year at NCIS, I'd planned to spend Christmas working on cases. Sam had invited Callen to dinner with his family that night, and when he found me still at the office, he…kind of threatened to drag me along with him." Kensi's lips twitch slightly at the memory. "Since then, I've been telling them I was going to see family in Seattle, just so I don't have to explain anything. I just bring cases home to work on, so I don't have to go in and make something else up."

She meets his eyes then; tries to glare at Deeks but it's halfhearted at best. "You're the only one who's ever questioned it."

"I've always been one of a kind," he quips, and it garners the desired result from her – a smile. It's tiny, but it's there. That small mission accomplished, he grows serious once more. Slowly, he closes what's left of the distance between them; he's close enough to reach out to her now, but he doesn't. He doesn't, because the risk of her closing down again is too great, and Deeks has a feeling that this is something that, whether she wants to or not, she _needs_ to get out. "It's not just Jack though, is it?" he presses quietly.

She shakes her head, and Deeks' heart clenches as she lifts a hand, brushing quickly at her eyes. She doesn't let the tears fall, though – a small victory, Kensi thinks. Right now, she'll take what she can get. "Let's just say that Christmas for me…" Her voice catches, but Kensi tries to hide it behind a quiet, forced chuckle. She knows from the quick glance at her partner, though, that she's not fooling him. "I've – there's a lot of ghosts in my past," she says finally. It's simple and doesn't reveal too much, but somehow, it sums everything up.

And it's all she can give, because even though it's been six years since Jack, even though it's been twelve years since she lost her dad, it _still_ feels like she's being ripped apart at the seams. This _hurts_.

But she fights through it – that's what Kensi does, after all.

She fights, and it's breaking his heart. Unable to stop himself, he takes the risk and reaches out to her, fully aware that the moment he touches her, she might, at the very least, swat his hand away or, at worst, twist his arm behind his back and have him on his knees in an instant.

He's mildly surprised when she does neither. Tenderly he brushes her hair back, tucking it behind her ears and revealing the still blossoming bruise on her forehead. It had looked bad earlier in the early evening light, but now…after being hidden by the Santa hat she'd worn at the soup kitchen and then by her somewhat tousled hair for the rest of the night, it looks _terrible_. The deep purple stands out in stark contrast to her skin, and the bump just seems to keep growing.

It's a good thing he hadn't been alone with Talbot at any point after that, Deeks thinks. The other man would be wishing _all_ he had was a bump by the time Deeks got done with him.

This protective streak of his he's quickly developing for his partner…he's going to have to learn to rein that in.

His fingertips drift to her skin, dancing gently along the outline of the bruise and Kensi winces slightly – she's not going to deny that it hurts. It _really_ hurts and she'd been _so_ looking forward to doing nothing more than coming home, downing a handful of painkillers and crashing on her couch.

But when has _anything_ ever gone according to plan with Deeks involved?

His touch strays from her bruise only to trace along her jaw, and it's there that Kensi's heartbeat begins to accelerate. Her eyes meet his then, and her breath catches when she realizes just how very close he is to her. His fingertips finally leave her skin, but she'd swear his touch lingers – she can still feel the sparks, she realizes. _Sparks_.

If he's as affected as she is, he does a much better job hiding it. "You ever think maybe it's time to lay some of those ghosts to rest?" he breathes, and Kensi doesn't want it to – _damn_ she doesn't want it to – but the low rumble of his voice drives a chill down the length of her spine.

"I thought I had," she murmurs, unable to lift her voice much more than that. It's not necessary, though, considering the diminished space between them. "And then something like today happens…and they just keep coming back."

She senses it before it happens – she can see it in his eyes, blue as the ocean. Kensi senses it, and oh _God_ she should stop it, stop _him._ She'll later blame it on the emotional overload thrown at her with the Talbot case and the general heartache surrounding the holidays, but for now, she's utterly overwhelmed by her partner's proximity, by the touch of his fingertips, by the masculine scent of him, by his pushiness (he means well, she knows, but it's still pushiness) and just by _everything_. His presence in her kitchen, his unwillingness to let her out of his sight tonight.

Yeah. She needs to stop this.

But she doesn't think she can.

Not tonight.

"I think," he breathes, "you just need to find a few reasons to smile about Christmas again, yeah?"

She's got no response to that and even if she did, she's not sure she could vocalize it. At this point, she can barely breathe. Her heart's pounding wildly against her ribcage and she thinks she might pass out at any moment (though she hopes to God that's just in her head because Deeks will _never_ let her talk her way out of an ER visit then).

He gives her time to put a stop to it. But for Kensi, that moment in the in-between is simultaneously too long and not long enough. It's long enough for the anticipation to peak, but not _nearly _long enough for her brain to regain the ability to think rationally. Right now, there's nothing rational about any of this. Nothing rational about the way she suddenly wants nothing more than him; nothing rational about how all of the day's pain seems so, so much less when she's looking in his eyes.

And there's certainly nothing rational about how she tilts her head as he moves in, _inviting_ this to happen when she should be stopping it. Deeks is her partner and these are lines that they are not allowed to cross. And even if they _were_ allowed to cross those lines, _Kensi_ isn't allowed to cross those lines. There's a reason she has a strict _first dates only_ rule; there's a reason she doesn't do attachments and commitments and _feelings_. There's a reason why she hasn't let any of that invade her life since Jack walked out and it's the only thing that's kept her from being sucked into the same heartbreak that inevitably plagues every serious relationship. There's a reason why she has all of these rules.

And that all goes out the window when his lips meet hers.

His palm finds her cheek as he kisses her softly, his lips slow and deliberate against hers. He's hesitant at first, cautious, but then she's kissing him back and errantly he thinks that this is _definitely_ about the point where he should be waking up. He doesn't, though, so either his subconscious is being uncharacteristically kind to him or this isn't a dream at all.

She'd sensed it coming but that doesn't prepare her for the electricity that surges through her body as they kiss. It's overpowering, more than enough to short-circuit her mind and leave her with nothing but feeling, nothing but sensation, nothing but him. Shivers race down her spine and she's almost certain she trembles, but Kensi finds she doesn't really care too much about that as their lips mesh for longer than what could probably be considered innocent (if there's anything _at all_ considered innocent in the first place about locking lips with her partner).

When he finally pulls away, it's the very last thing Deeks wants to do but he knows he has to. Knows he has to because her hand has found its way to his chest and he's quickly becoming addicted to the taste of her. And this isn't at all what he'd planned to do tonight.

As their lips part, he gently touches his forehead to hers, ever mindful of the bruise there. Kensi draws in a shaky breath before letting it out with his name. "Deeks…" In her mind, it's supposed to be a protest, because _they can't do this_. In the air between them, though, it's much too breathy to be a protest and Kensi can hear that with her own ears. So she swallows hard and tries again. "Deeks."

He drops his hand from her cheek, noting with a hint of amusement that her hand remains bunched slightly in his shirt. He waits for her to open her eyes, and then Deeks grins, his breath warm against her skin as he speaks, offering her an escape, an excuse for what had just happened. "Mistletoe."

She doesn't take the out. Instead, she merely grins at his playful quip; it offsets any tension that might be threatening to fall between them in the aftermath and lets them slip back into their usual teasing, sometimes flirty banter. And for that she's grateful because suddenly, she's realizing just how much she doesn't want to jeopardize what they have. "You know I don't have mistletoe."

"Invisible mistletoe?"

It's such a typical Deeks answer and Kensi can't help but laugh. And it's an honest to goodness, genuine laugh too, on Christmas Eve of all nights. "Uh-huh," she smirks. Her tongue sweeps over her lips then, catching the subtle taste of him that lingers and damn, if she had just a _tiny_ bit less willpower, she thinks she might've pulled him into another kiss. She doesn't, though…wants to, _God_ she wants to, but she doesn't. "Nice try, Deeks."

"Well, _I_ certainly thought so," he smirks.

And then he steps back, leaving behind a chill as he slips back out of her personal space – any other time, that would've been a relief to her. This time…well, she's confused about a lot of things right now, things she's not really willing to think about with this headache still raging. Instead, she turns with him, her gaze following as he crosses her kitchen, as calm as if nothing had just happened between them. "What are you doing?" she asks curiously.

He stops in front of the freezer, one hand on the door as he shoots a grin back at her. "Ice cream," he replies, and Kensi can't stop the smile that tugs at her lips. "I, uh, believe there's a movie you didn't get to finish earlier?"

Suddenly, she's not so opposed to sharing the rest of her evening with him anymore. "Yeah…but uh, maybe we could start a new one instead," she suggests, following his lead and grabbing both of their beers from the counter. "Maybe something that's…_not_ Christmas," she adds.

Deeks smiles affectionately. "I think that's probably a good idea," he agrees. Then, glancing between the carton of ice cream in his hand and their beers in hers, he can't help but shake his head and chuckle – he's still not sure he's _completely_ on board with her idea of Christmas dinner.

But for her, though, he'll give it a try.

-:-

She wakes tangled with him on the couch the next morning, her head tucked snugly beneath his chin. Surprisingly, there's only a slight twinge in her bruise, though the swelling sure hasn't diminished overnight. Aside from that, she feels...a number of things that sure don't feel like her usual Christmas morning feelings.

Sometime around one in the morning, Deeks had suggested it was probably about time for him to head home...and then Kensi had put in another movie. Apparently, neither of them had made it to the end of that one, she realizes with a slight grin. And clearly, that's how they'd ended up like this.

She doesn't let herself linger on how good this feels. Doesn't let herself think about how comfortable she is with his arms around her, her body nestled against his. And she sure doesn't let herself conjure up the memories of the kiss they'd shared the night before because that's _incredibly_ dangerous territory.

Instead, though so much of her is crying out for her to stop and just _enjoy _it, Kensi carefully slips out of his arms while he's still asleep. A few moments, a bit of makeup, and a strategic parting of her hair later, she's quietly slipping out of the apartment to seek out a coffeeshop open on Christmas morning. When she returns with coffee and muffins for both of them, he's just shaking himself out of sleep, his usually messy hair in even greater disarray than normal, and Kensi can't help but smile. She ignores the flutter in her chest as he flashes that smile at her and instead lobs back a snappy reply when he teases her over her choice of muffin.

It's not until a full year later that she realizes the damage that single night had done to the fortified walls around her heart. It's not until she's taking a break from the emotionally draining, unsanctioned search for answers about her father's death by digging her toes into the sand and gazing out at the water that she realizes that she _hasn't_ given away her heart again, but that she's had it stolen right out of her grasp without her knowledge or permission.

The answers she's found on this trip aren't what she'd expected, and Kensi needs a moment to regroup, to come to terms with what she's found. As she takes a moment to think, just to _breathe_, she finds herself watching the various surfers on the Hawaiian waves. There are scores of them taking advantage of the sun and the ocean on this Christmas morning, plenty with good-looking bodies and messy hair and the whole laid-back surfer look that she finds she's developed a certain liking for.

But as one by one they begin to come in from the waves, boards at their sides and water dripping from their bodies, Kensi realizes something with a jolt to her heart.

There's only one surfer she wishes she was watching, only one scruffy surfer she wishes was making his way up the beach toward her now.

And he's all the way back in Los Angeles.

* * *

><p><em>to be continued<em>


	5. unwrapping the best present of all

**/5/**

This year, Kensi Blye has a tree.

She has a tree, with twinkling lights and ornaments and tinsel and everything. There's even a star on top, and not just any star either. Over the years, she's parted with nearly every reminder of Christmas that she owns, but not this star. As vividly as if it were yesterday, she can remember the strength in her father's arms as he'd lifted her six-year-old self onto his shoulders, that same shiny star in her hands.

It'd been the first year that he'd trusted her with what he called the greatest responsibility of Christmas, placing that finishing touch on the very top of the tree. She'll never forget the pride in his eyes as he'd gently placed her back on her feet and ruffled her hair, pride that forever morphed such a simple task into one of the utmost importance.

It's one of the few memories of Christmas that she's fiercely held on to.

And this year, she'd trusted that same responsibility to someone else – he doesn't know the significance, not yet anyway, but she does. She does, and the simple act of placing that star in his hands, that star that'd been buried in a box, hidden away in the deepest recesses of her most cluttered closet…it'd been her own personal way of trusting him with so much more.

It's not that she's not ready to say the words yet; it's more that she's just not ready to _hear_ _herself_ say the words. After all, the last person she let get this close to her…

Kensi closes her eyes, banishing the reminder from her thoughts. She's let his ghost dictate her life for far too long; in building those insurmountable walls around her heart, she'd effectively locked him in. And maybe that'd been the point, she thinks; she'd been so in love with her Jack that she'd refused to let him go. She'd refused to fall in love again, both in an effort to stop herself from being hurt again, and because she'd been oh so certain that Jack would always be her one and only, that there could be no one she could love like she'd loved him.

And then, some cosmic alignment of the planets combined with sheer luck (and perhaps a little bit of Hetty's intervention) had dropped Marty Deeks into her life.

Now, _he's_ the one she can't imagine letting go. _He's_ the one who's stolen the broken shards of her heart and put them back together again.

He's the one who changed _everything_.

Kensi Blye is twenty-nine and for the first time since she was fifteen, she's considering letting herself celebrate Christmas again. Because if _this_ is Christmas morning - this sense of warmth that blankets her entire being, this feeling of contentment that wells up within her despite herself, the soft, playful flutter of lips against her throat that draws her slowly and gently from the depths of sleep…this is something that Kensi knows she could get used to.

She won't tell him lest his playful ego grow any larger (if that's even possible), but this is the kind of holiday wake-up call that could very easily have her wishing Christmas morning was _every_ morning.

He grins against her skin then, and that's when Kensi knows that he senses that she's awake. Beside him, she gives a slow, luxurious stretch, humming softly as deliciously tired muscles feebly protest the movement – they'd be content to curl up for the rest of the day right here within the warmth of her favorite blonde detective's strong arms…and so would the rest of her.

"Merry Christmas," he breathes against her throat, punctuating the words with a kiss.

His arms snake around her and draw her closer, her back against his bare chest and Kensi can't help but shiver. "You woke me up," she grouses lazily, the smile tugging at her lips offsetting any perceived petulance in her voice.

Deeks smirks playfully. "It's Christmas," he says with the quiet excitement of a small child. "You're lucky I didn't wake you up _hours_ ago."

Kensi laughs softly, though it's clipped into a sharp gasp as his teeth playfully tug at her earlobe. Despite the sleepiness that still lingers, she feels her heart begin to accelerate. "Well, good thing you didn't, because you know what would have happened if you'd woken me before the sun."

He nuzzles against her, dialing up the charm. "You would have taken one look into my eyes and been unable to resist me."

It's a statement, not a question, and so, _so_ typically Deeks. Rolling her eyes, Kensi groans and tries – halfheartedly – to squirm out of his grasp. "You're _not_ irresistible, you know."

The fact that she's not really trying makes it that much easier for Deeks to pull her back. He tugs playfully, gently rolling her onto her back beside of him before flashing his signature grin down at her. "Oh, but I _am_."

Kensi snorts. _"Chocolate_ is irresistible," she says, a mischievous glimmer in her dark eyes. "Rocky road is irresistible. Those _delicious_ cream-filled doughnuts you bring me?" Kensi closes her eyes briefly, a smile on her lips as she embellishes a moan of delight. "_Those_ are irresistible. But you?"

Her lips curve into a frown as her eyes take their time playfully scrutinizing him – from the tanned, well-defined muscles of his torso to his strong arms, the scruff of his face and the smirk at his lips (she doesn't linger on _that_ for long because his smirk sends a shiver down her spine and she's trying to prove a point here), to those gorgeous blue eyes of his, and finally to his perpetually messy blonde hair, partially obscured this morning by a slightly lopsided, bright red Santa hat. "Not so much," she says as she reaches up, playfully batting at the round ball of fluff on the tip. "Especially not with that ridiculous hat – is that supposed to endear you to me?"

"It's called showing a little bit of holiday spirit," he says. "What's wrong with that?"

Kensi wrinkles her nose in faux disgust. "It bothers me."

Deeks just smirks. "You mean it gets you all _hot_ and bothered."

She doesn't even try to stifle the snort of laughter that escapes her lips. "Not _really_ that kind of bothered," she clarifies, playfully patting his chest.

"You sure about that?" He doesn't miss a beat. "Because as I recall, you _were_ that kind of bothered last night." Deeks' grin widens; reaching out, he traces a teasing fingertip along her lower lip. "You know, when you _roughly _grabbed me by the collar and _brutally_ attacked me with your mouth?"

Kensi scoffs, though she can't completely fight back the flood of pink to her cheeks – after all, the memory is quite vivid in her own head as well…as are the events that had followed. "I was drunk," she defends, shrugging innocently.

"So drunk that you bit my ear and then whispered just how sexy I was?" He smirks. "And how much it drove you crazy that you had to wait until we got home before you could have me?"

"_You_ were drunk."

His blue eyes flicker devilishly. Shifting beside her, he leans in closer, his voice little more than a low whisper as he continues. "I _believe_ your exact words were, 'Does Santa have a present for me?'"

Laughing, Kensi rolls her eyes and playfully shoves at his shoulder. "You're obviously _still_ drunk," she teases, "because there is _no_ way something like that would _ever_ come out of my mouth."

"Uh-huh." Deeks smirks, allowing a hand to delve deviously beneath the covers, though for the moment he allows it merely to rest innocently at her hip. "I think you'd be surprised at some of the things you say when you're…" he pauses, lightly squeezing her hip, "all needy. Desperate. _Wanton_." He shifts again, settling slightly above her and the glint in his eyes starts the spark deep in her belly. "But that's okay if you don't remember, 'cause I'm about to get you there again."

Kensi sucks in a breath, a protest ready at her lips. But it never reaches the air because his mouth covers hers quickly, rendering that playful retort nothing more than a whimper against his lips. One kiss becomes two, and two quickly becomes more than she can count. She loses herself in the rhythm of his mouth against hers, the subtle push and pull in their kisses, both of them longing to surrender but never really willing to. The pure need begins to well up inside of her and translates itself into fervor as their kisses quickly become messy, hungry, desperate. She's soon dizzy, but whether from lust or lack of oxygen, Kensi can't say. Isn't sure of anything really, except the simple, primal knowledge that she needs _more_ of him.

Her fingers tangle in his blonde hair, tugging gently at the strands. That earns her a low grunt and a playful nip at her lip. It doesn't hurt but nonetheless Deeks soothes his tongue over it, and the quiet moan that makes its way to Kensi's ears is most decidedly her own. To her brief displeasure, it's only a quick second after that when his mouth leaves hers, seemingly intent on brushing kisses elsewhere. Kensi closes her eyes, struggling to breathe as his lips dance along her jaw, his scruff scratching and tickling her skin as he moves. She tilts her head, offering him access to her throat; when his lips press immediately against the most sensitive patch of skin there, kissing and suckling and teasing, she can't help but squirm against him. Between that and his roaming hands, she knows it won't be long before he's got her limbs turning to jelly.

But she's not quite ready to surrender the upper hand just yet. Summoning some hidden source of willpower, she lets her hands drift from his hair and down the muscles of his back, reveling in the low groan he gives against her mouth. As her touch drifts sneakily beneath the covers somewhere near his hips, she traces her fingers around to his toned abdomen before continuing on their quest. When she finds what she's looking for, Deeks tenses above her, drawing in a sharp breath. It's the moment of distraction she needs, and with a devilish grin playing at her lips, Kensi summons her strength and rolls them, pinning him on his back before he even realizes what's going on. She finds his mouth, kissing him just long enough to tease before she pulls away, grinning at his pout of displeasure. She shakes the covers away and straightens up, gazing playfully down at him.

His deep cerulean eyes glaze over as he drinks in the sight of her. Tousled dark hair framing her face and flowing in waves over her shoulders, her dark, desire-filled eyes, gorgeous curves in just the right places that accentuate her slender body…he can't help but wonder sometimes if she has _any_ idea just how incredibly _beautiful _she is.

A triumphant smile plays upon her lips as she straddles him. It's the same one she always wears when she knows she's gotten the upper hand on him (or, rather, when he lets her _think_ she's gotten the upper hand on him). Right now, he's rather content to let her think that because he's pretty damn satisfied with the view. He's struck then – quite randomly, he thinks – by the a memory more than two years old: instead of the softness of the mattress at his back, it'd been concrete, and instead of her straddling him, she'd been pressed fully against him, his arms tight around her, not quite willing to let her go. Very, _very _different situations, but Deeks thinks he must be looking up at her now with the same amount of slightly dazed awe as he'd gazed up at her then.

Back then, though, it'd been because they'd actually made it out in one piece. It'd been because his dangerous, ridiculous, _insane_ plan had actually worked. It'd been because, instead of suggesting they stick to his original idea and call the bomb squad (arguably the safer option), she'd taken his offered hands and trusted him to lead her to safety. It'd been because, with his ears ringing and flames blazing behind them, the beautiful woman in his arms _had_ been looking back at him, fear and fire and _life_ in her eyes.

And now…

Now it's because he's so in love with this woman that he can barely breathe without her.

He certainly can't imagine his life without her.

He's silent for much too long – Kensi had expected a protest or an at least an attempt to pull her down to him immediately. There's nothing, though; nothing but his eyes on her and Kensi bites at her lip, feeling that telltale flutter in her stomach. "Stop gaping," she admonishes gently, feeling the color begin to rise in her cheeks.

Deeks doesn't comply. And really, how can he? She's a goddess gazing down at him – there's really no other description, as far as he's concerned, and for him not to stare? Well, he'd have to be blind. Reaching out to her, he gently traces the tips of his fingers along her taut belly, cataloguing to memory the way her body quivers beneath even that miniscule touch before his palm finally settles at her hip. He indulges himself for a moment more before his eyes finally lock with hers. "I don't think I can," he quips quite honestly, unconsciously licking his lips. "Kensi…"

His obvious appreciation of her body sends a delicious shiver racing down her spine. The tint in her cheeks deepens and, suddenly feeling a tiny bit self-conscious beneath the intensity of his gaze, she reaches out and playfully tugs the brim of his Santa hat down over his eyes. Deeks protests immediately by trying to swat her hands away, but Kensi just laughs, holding it in place. "I _told _you to stop…" she reminds him.

Deeks doesn't miss a beat. "You _also_ told me to lose the hat," he says, finally managing to pry it from her fingers. He grins as he tosses it aside, hearing it softly hit the floor. "I mean, if you expect me to do what you tell me to do, I guess I have to do it all, huh?"

"As if you do anything I tell you to do unless there's something in it for you," she retorts, lightly tracing her fingertips over his muscled chest.

He takes her by surprise then. Grasping her forearms, he tugs her forward, pleased with the yelp she gives as she collapses atop him. Before she can regain her bearings, she's the one on her back again with Deeks hovering above her, her heart pounding against her chest as he smirks down at her. "Don't act like there's nothing in this for you too," he breathes, his voice a silky promise of things to come. Kensi shudders, then surrenders as his lips claim hers once more. She surrenders to the heat of his kiss and the desire bubbling up inside of her.

It's not long before he's got her hovering on the edge, squirming and sighing as the potent combination of kisses and featherlight touches stokes the growing fire within. The electricity pulses through her veins, leaving her entire body practically humming for him. Her nails dig into his shoulders, lacking the patience that fills his every touch. His wandering fingertips dance along heated skin, touching and teasing, building up and soothing just slightly, and the smirk at his lips is all the proof she needs – he knows _exactly _what he's doing to her, and he's loving every last second of it.

And the more she protests, the more she pleads with him, the more he pulls back. It's infuriating, absolutely infuriating, but Kensi finds herself powerless to stop him. Struggling for breath, she threads her fingers through the messy strands of his hair as his mouth ghosts over her belly. He lets her, but as soon as she tries to tug him back up, Deeks shakes her touch away.

Kensi gives a whine of protest, which only fuels the smirk that forms upon his lips. "I told you," he whispers, his breath hot against her skin. The tight muscles of her stomach quiver in response, and Deeks chuckles, pressing a slow kiss just below her navel. "We're doing this _my_ way, this time."

And steadfastly he sticks to that plan, even though Kensi makes it _damn_ hard for him. He knows what she wants but he doesn't give in just yet, despite the whimpers and the sighs and the clutching of her fingers at any part of him that she can reach. It tests him, but at the same time, it's also the reward, and that's what keeps him to the _torturously _slow pace, the knowledge that he's driving her out of her mind.

He lulls her deep into a state of utter, complete seduction, his lips and fingertips ghosting over every inch of skin until she's quivering with every touch, every kiss. There's only one thing that breaks him, only one thing that has him kissing his way back to her lips, his own near-desperate need for her clawing right through his desire to slowly push her to brink of insanity. There's only one thing, and it hits him right in the chest.

"_Marty_…"

He doesn't hear it near as often as he hears his last name, so it makes it all the more meaningful when it does. Deeks had questioned her about it one night as they lay together in bed, not long after they'd decided this _thing_ of theirs had slipped well beyond just a simple thing and into the deeper complexities of a real relationship. It'd taken her off guard, his simple question – she really hadn't had an answer for it. "_I – I don't know," _she'd said, her brow furrowed, honestly stumped. _"You've just…always been Deeks…"_

She whispers his name again, trembling beneath him, and that's all he can handle. He lowers his head, nuzzling at her neck and the whimper she gives just about does him in. Her name leaves his lips and after another long moment of letting the fire and the friction burn between then, he brings them blissfully together. Her nails dig into his skin, and when he lifts his head and finds her mouth, his kiss is the first sign of desperation he's shown all morning.

But when he breaks away and breathes for a moment, Deeks again shoves that desperation away. There's no rush, he keeps telling himself. They've got all the time in the world, and he plans on taking advantage of that. So he keeps the pace slow, almost _agonizingly_ slow, soft moans and whimpers drifting their way to his ears.

The fact that he's the one slowly driving her out of her mind is _such_ a boost to his ego. And, beyond that – the fact that she's _letting_ him, after everything that she's been through, after all the heartache she's experienced over the years…that hits him straight in the chest. This relationship that's built on everything they've both struggled with in the past – trust, openness, commitment, and (dare he say it) love, it utterly blows his mind. He's certain he doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve _her_, but somehow, for some reason, she's here with him. Kensi Blye, this beautiful strong woman who can take on anything (and pretty much has throughout her twenty-nine years) and come out victorious…_she_ wants _him_.

He doesn't have the faintest idea why.

What he does know, though, is that he's never been this far _gone_. Never.

And so he ignores the tension building up in his muscles, tries not to succumb to the fire threatening to consume him now by instead focusing on her. He watches her, watches the way her rosy lips part with her sighs, the way her eyelids flutter over her desire-darkened orbs, the blush in her cheeks that's slowly spreading through much of the rest of her body. He watches, cataloguing her every motion, her every breath, the way she clasps her fingers at the back of his head and pulls him in for a desperate kiss. And it's all of that that, despite the fact that Deeks is just as gone as she is, that he's only _barely_ keeping himself in check, that makes the languid tempo of their lovemaking more than worth it.

And then when she clutches him firmly, trembling and crying out his first name, that makes _everything_ worth it.

-:-

In the afterglow, she's even more reluctant to leave the warmth of his arms. Nestled against him, she lays her head upon his chest, listening to the beat of his heart as it slows back to its natural rhythm. His fingers dance over her back, tracing slow circles and various other shapes over her cooling skin; when she shivers, he tugs the covers more tightly around her and presses a kiss into her hair.

She's not sure how much time passes as she alternates between moments lost in thought and gently dozing against him. She's a flurry of thousands of different thoughts and emotions, though at the moment, the one that sticks out most to her is the thought of just how unlike Christmas this is. If not for the ridiculous Santa hat Deeks had tossed away somewhere, she wouldn't believe it. Happiness, companionship, hope…that's just not what she's learned Christmas to be.

For so long, Christmas had meant nothing but loneliness to her. The only "gift" she received year after year had been yet another dart of cold emptiness to her unhealed heart. Jack had given her one special Christmas; the next year, he'd been deployed, and then the following year had been the year he'd disappeared and destroyed what little hope he'd given her for the holiday. After that, she'd closed off her heart and banished the holidays to the same locked box she keeps all the rest of her unhappy memories hidden in. After losing her dad, and then losing Jack, she would never spend Christmas alone ever again…because to her, Christmas would never happen again. It would pass just as any other day.

That'd been her decision, and once Kensi Blye makes up her mind, there's no changing it.

And then two years ago, Marty Deeks had given her no choice.

This year, waking up beside of him had been her own choice.

And if she has her way, it'll be her choice for many years to come.

Somehow, all those rules she's made along the way, they don't seem to mean much at all where Deeks is concerned. Even now, curled up against him like this…if anybody a few years ago had told her this would be her choice, Kensi would have laughed right in their face because the idea of this would have been so incredibly unfathomable to the Kensi of years gone by. Like it or not (and really, she _does_ like it), Deeks has turned her into something she hasn't been for the greater part of the past decade, something she hasn't allowed herself to be since Jack: a cuddler. She's had numerous casual encounters with men since Jack and before Deeks, even a few that she'd allowed to slip past the first date and into a second, but she'd never allowed this kind of coziness. It was a means of protecting herself, she always told herself. If she didn't let herself get close, she'd never get hurt again.

And then, somehow Deeks had managed to breach her walls, turning her concept of necessary personal space into little more than dust. And these days, there's no denying that she sleeps best with his arms around her, her body nestled against his.

_"You're going soft on me, Fern," _Deeks had teased her once. And _only_ once, because while she might have been sleepily reluctant to let him leave the bed to start some coffee, that certainly didn't mean her fist didn't still pack the same punch. She smirks at the memory – he'd whined about it for days, and she _had_ felt more than a little apologetic when she realized it had left a bruise…but only until he cheekily suggested that she should kiss it better. That wiped out just about any sympathy she had for him.

Shifting against him so she can rest her chin on his chest, Kensi lazily gazes up at his face. Eyes closed, breath even, she's certain he's sleeping again and she can't help but smile. Right now, he looks peaceful, completely at ease. Then again, there aren't many times that he comes across as anything other than completely at ease – that's just who he is…or, rather, it's just the mask he wears. After all, she knows he's got plenty of demons in his past as well – how he manages to live every day with a perpetual grin at his lips and a witty quip on his tongue fascinates her because that's something she's struggled with more often than not. She's excellent at forcing indifference; it's forcing happiness that she struggles with.

She realizes then just how little she's had to _force_ that happiness since Deeks crashed into her life. With him, she can't help but smile. He makes her laugh; he challenges her, keeps her on her toes. And beyond that, though she doubts she'll _ever_ admit such a thing out loud, he just…makes her better. Kensi doesn't really believe in soulmates or other halves, but there's just something about the way he fits so seamlessly into her life, into everything she is. Certainly, they have their moments where everything _isn't_ great, and they clash occasionally on the job these days (he's got a protective streak that's eternally at war with her reckless one), but not once have they ever failed to come back from that.

She's pulled from her thoughts then as he shifts against her, jarring her slightly. He stretches a bit before his eyes slowly blink open, meeting hers immediately. "You woke me up," he murmurs huskily, and Kensi's certain that his sleep-tinged voice probably _shouldn't_ start the desire pooling in her belly again. It does, though. Oh how it does.

A smile tugs at her lips though as she recognizes her own earlier words. "Did not."

"You did," he insists, a matching grin on his own mouth. "I could feel you staring at me." He shrugs then, pursing his lips briefly as if thinking. "But I guess that's okay, since I'd stare at me too, breathtaking specimen that I am."

Kensi embellishes a gag. "Because that's exactly what it is," she says dryly before he has the chance to deem her response classy.

He just smirks, though only for a second more. Reaching out to her, Deeks gently smoothes her tousled hair before allowing his palm to settle at her cheek. It's a sweet gesture, and Kensi closes her eyes and just, for a moment, allows herself to feel it. "You _were_ thinking about something, though," Deeks points out after a moment. He waits for her eyes to flutter open again before he continues. "I could feel it."

The intensity in his gaze has her squirming yet again, though this time the reasoning is different. She hides her eyes, suddenly feeling quite transparent but Deeks is having none of that. His touch nothing but gentle, he coaxes her face back toward him, drawing her gaze back to his. "Kens?"

He sees right through her and she knows it. Knows it, but still she demurs. "It's nothing…" she says, softly shaking her head. Her teeth pull lightly at her lower lip as she's again flooded with the same feelings she'd awoken with. Warmth, trust, delight…and all of it just from the realization she'd discovered before her eyes even blinked open. It'd been the fact that it's Christmas morning, and she's not alone.

It's a bit silly, she thinks. But then again, she knows it's anything but.

She's not going to lie and say the fears hadn't been gnawing at her the night before, even as Deeks' strong arms enveloped her, even as she'd felt the warmth of his body cradling hers…even as she'd drifted off, unsure if the words he'd whispered into her hair had been real or just wisps of a blossoming dream. She thinks there's a part of her that's always going to hold that fear; that fear that she'll wake up one morning and realize that everything that means anything to her, everything she loves has been ripped away from her yet again under the cloak of darkness. And somehow, with Deeks, it's even more frightening because she _knows_ the pain. She _knows_ how much it hurts, and she doesn't think her heart can survive going through that again.

She doesn't think she could survive losing him too.

The fact that she has no control over any of it _terrifies_ her. She can't control what happens while she sleeps, and she can't _not_ sleep. She can't control the fact that she fears that one day he'll be gone, just as Jack was. She can't control the depth of her feelings for him; she couldn't stop him from breaking through and she couldn't stop herself from falling as hard as she did. She couldn't control the initial lust; couldn't stop when that lust became a deeper infatuation, and she certainly couldn't stop that infatuation from becoming what can only, _only_ be called love.

_She's in love with him. _

And she knows that's true when just the thought causes a flutter in her belly, a lightness in her chest and a chill at the base of her spine.

The emotions flit through Kensi's eyes, and Deeks has a good idea of what she's fighting. His fingers drift, gently tracing along her jaw in a soothing, encouraging caress. "Tell me," he coaxes quietly. "Don't close down on me."

She thinks it's ridiculous how easily he breaks down her defenses. With anyone else, she could force a smile to her lips and insist it's nothing, that she's fine, and they would believe her. Not Deeks. Never Deeks. And it's infuriating at times how well he can read her, _despite_ her superb defenses.

Sighing heavily, Kensi lifts her own hand to her face, laying it gently atop his. She fits her fingers in the spaces between his, smiling softly as she realizes, yet again, how just like the matching pieces of a puzzle they are. It's a realization that scares her every time, but at the same time, it also thrills her. It thrills her that, despite the fear she just can't shake, that this could be it for her. That _he_ could be _it_. "It's just that…" she begins quietly, her voice little more than a whisper. And then she can't help it – she squirms. It's this combination of the intensity in his eyes and the openness of this revelation that she's yet to become entirely comfortable with, though she's steps ahead of where she was two years ago. It's not easy, but it's _easier_. It's grown easier once she forced herself to realize that if she didn't let him in, he was just going to force his own way in.

And, in the end, she trusts him. It's herself, though, that she's still learning to trust. It's because of herself that she still sometimes holds back, not him.

It's a moment before she continues, but he's patient. Sam and Callen always joke that she must have the patience of a saint to put up with him, first as her partner and then as more, but really, she thinks sometimes it must be the other way around. She hasn't exactly made a lot of this relationship easy for him…and still he's here.

And that…that's exactly what she tells him. "It's just that…you're here."

There are a million ways he can respond to that but he's sure there's only one way to convey his every intention to her. Laying his palm on her cheek, he kisses her softly yet fully, their mouths mingling until both of them are starved for oxygen. He knows she means more than just for this morning; he knows that deep inside, there's a part of her that still believes she's cursed, that everyone she lets herself grow close to is going to leave her in some way. Jack, her father, old boyfriends, old partners…he knows part of her still fears he'll be the same. He knows just how hesitant she'd been the night before to succumb to sleep – she'd tried to hide it, but he'd felt it in her body. He'd felt it, and so he'd taken it upon himself to soothe her gently into sleep because the sooner she drifted off, the sooner she would awaken and realize that he's _not_ going to disappear on her. He's not Jack. He'll _never_ let himself be Jack.

When he separates from her, he waits until her eyes lock again with his before he speaks. And when he does, he means every word that leaves his lips. "I say this knowing that it sounds cheesy and there's every possibility that you might hit me for it," he begins, watching Kensi's mouth curve in a slight smirk – it wouldn't be the first time she'd ever hit him for a sappy, overly endearing remark. "But, uh, there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

She doesn't tell him that Jack had once promised her the same.

She doesn't tell him because she's tired of letting the ghost of a long-gone relationship rule everything she does, everything she _is_. She doesn't want to live beneath that cloud any longer.

So instead, Kensi loses herself in his ocean blue eyes and takes that leap of faith.

The foundation of their relationship, after all, has always been trust. And if she can't trust him, well, there's no one she can trust. She's been placing her life in his hands for more than two years now and during that time, he's gotten his grasp on a large chunk of her heart as well.

She's ready to let him have all of it.

Though, really, she suspects he's truly had all of her from the very beginning.

Sighing softly, Kensi relaxes against him, tucking her head beneath his chin. Automatically his arms loop around her again, and though she's always prided herself on being able to take care of herself, she thinks she's never really felt more secure than she does right now. "You'd better mean that," she says softly.

It's a playful way of saying that she believes him, that she _trusts_ him. And none of that is lost on Deeks. He knows what her words _really_ mean, even if she's not quite ready to say them directly. And, in knowing that, he knows what she is and isn't ready to hear. So instead of repeating his promise again, he nuzzles gently into her hair, breathing her in for a moment before he speaks. "You practice shooting people _in the groin_, Kens," he quips with a theatrical shudder. He can't see it, but he knows the words bring a smile to her lips. And, more than that, he knows that she hears the deeper meaning in his playful words. "I wouldn't promise you that if I thought there was _any_ chance I might not mean it."

And that, by far, is enough for her.

-:-

It's hours later when Kensi finally shifts against him again, reveling in the slight groan of protest he gives as he thinks she's trying to pull away from him. She grins, laying her palm against his scruffy cheek. "What, you don't think maybe we should finally get up?" Her eyes sparkle as she continues. "You were awful insistent on getting _me_ up earlier."

He laughs softly. "I was insistent on _waking_ you up, not _getting _you up." He flashes her his signature grin. "Big difference. Besides," he adds, tugging her gently closer. "I'm comfortable right here. Why would I want to get up?"

Kensi shrugs. "I don't know," she sing-songs, lightly dancing her fingertips over his chest. "There might just be a present or two for you under the tree…"

Deeks smirks. "Really, now?" he murmurs, tracing his own fingers suggestively down her spine and then back up her side. Kensi quivers in his arms as his touch brushes a particularly sensitive patch of skin, one that he'd discovered almost immediately their first time together. "Because I'm pretty sure I already unwrapped the best present of all," he finishes, his voice oozing his typical charm.

Even though she rolls her eyes, Kensi can't fight the smile that tugs at her lips. "That's the worst line I've ever heard, Deeks. I bet you use it on _all_ the girls you wake up next to on Christmas morning," she teases humorously.

"You'd be wrong," he corrects her, a playful glint in his eyes. "Only ever used that on one girl…and she's _obviously_ charmed by it because she's still in my arms."

"Maybe she's just too tired to move."

"Of course she is, because _somebody_…" He pauses, dropping his voice to a whisper before continuing, "_rocked her world_ last night. _And_ this morning."

Kensi snorts. "Oh, is _that_ what you did?"

"You _know_ that's what I did," he says cockily.

She tilts her head thoughtfully, allowing a long moment of silence to fall between them as she seemingly wracks her brain. Finally she shakes her head and shrugs coyly, her eyes bright and playfully innocent. "I'm trying, but you know, I just don't recall that," she says, her voice dripping with a syrupy, false apology. He just smirks up at her – he knows exactly what game she's playing. "I mean…I've got nothing…"

Deeks clucks his tongue. "I guess I'll just have to jog your memory by showing you again…"

Kensi sighs, unable to fully hide her grin. "What a horrible chore, huh?"

"Absolutely _horrendous_." Deeks gives a heavy sigh of faux exasperation – very, very quickly, though, a devilish grin breaks across his lips and Kensi shivers in anticipation. "But we do what we gotta do, right?"

And then he tightens his arms around her and rolls them swiftly, eliciting a burst of unbridled laughter from her lips as they tangle again within each other and the covers.

She thinks as he kisses her again that she's never been this happy.

And his thoughts echo hers exactly.

It's early evening by the time they finally make it out of the bed to open their actual gifts, the ones tucked neatly beneath the tree in her den, but Kensi knows she wouldn't have it any other way. Spending most of the day wrapped up in his arms and the blankets on her bed, then curled up with him on the couch after presents to each other have been opened, the only illumination the soft flicker of Christmas lights and the dim glow from the television as an old movie plays before them…really, she can't think of any better way to start enjoying the holidays again.

It's the first Christmas that Kensi _chooses _not to spend alone.

And Deeks makes absolutely sure it's not the last.

* * *

><p><em>the end.<em>

* * *

><p><strong><em>Cannot bring an end to this without thanking a couple of dear friends of mine - you know who you are - who offered the encouragement I needed to get my act together and get this final chapter posted before Christmas 2012, lol. And of course, a huge, huge thanks to all of you who offered your thoughts either via review or PM or twitter, or otherwise, heh. It was a fun and (mildly) easy way to ease back into the groove of writing a multi-chap, and I appreciate every one of you who stuck with me through the whole thing. Perhaps I shall see you guys on the next adventure... ;)<em>**


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